FE-1 Constitutional Law flashcards

34 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Marbury v. Madison

The 1803 decision establishing judicial review: a court may declare an act of Congress unconstitutional when it conflicts with the Constitution, and the Constitution controls over ordinary legislation.

Standing elements

Article III requires injury-in-fact that is concrete and particularized, traceability to the challenged conduct, and redressability by the requested relief; generalized grievances are insufficient.

Ripeness doctrine

A claim is ripe when it presents a live, concrete dispute fit for judicial review and withholding review would impose substantial hardship on the parties.

Mootness exceptions

A case otherwise moot may proceed if the conduct is capable of repetition yet evading review, voluntarily ceased but likely to recur, or causes collateral consequences.

Political question doctrine

Courts decline cases involving issues textually committed to another branch or lacking judicially manageable standards, such as foreign affairs recognition and impeachment trial procedures.

State action requirement

Constitutional rights generally constrain government, not private conduct; exceptions include public functions, significant state entanglement, and joint action between state and private actors.

Strict scrutiny

The most demanding review: the government must show a compelling interest and that the law is narrowly tailored, using the least restrictive means, to achieve that interest.

Intermediate scrutiny

Applied to sex and illegitimacy classifications: the government must show an important interest and that the means are substantially related to achieving that interest.

Rational basis review

The deferential standard: a law survives if it is rationally related to a legitimate government purpose, and the challenger bears the burden of negating every conceivable justification.

Procedural due process

Before depriving a person of life, liberty, or property, government must provide notice and a meaningful hearing; Mathews v. Eldridge balances private interest, risk of error, and government burden.

Substantive due process

The Due Process Clause protects certain fundamental liberty interests, such as marriage, procreation, contraception, and family integrity, from government interference absent compelling justification.

Equal protection tiers

Race and national origin classifications get strict scrutiny; sex and illegitimacy get intermediate scrutiny; age, poverty, and most other classifications get rational basis review.

Content-based regulation

A law regulating speech because of its subject matter or viewpoint is presumptively invalid and must satisfy strict scrutiny to survive a First Amendment challenge.

Time, place, manner rule

A content-neutral speech regulation must serve a significant interest, be narrowly tailored, and leave open ample alternative channels of communication to be valid.

Prior restraint

A licensing or injunction scheme that prevents speech before publication bears a heavy presumption of unconstitutionality and requires narrow standards and prompt judicial review.

Overbreadth doctrine

A law that sweeps in a substantial amount of protected speech may be challenged facially by a party whose own conduct could otherwise be regulated.

Establishment Clause tests

Courts assess whether a law has a secular purpose, has a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion, and avoids excessive entanglement, or whether it coerces religious observance.

Free Exercise neutrality

Neutral, generally applicable laws burdening religion receive rational basis review; laws targeting religious practice or granting individualized exemptions trigger strict scrutiny.

Commerce Clause power

Congress may regulate interstate channels, instrumentalities, and intrastate activity that substantially affects interstate commerce, including aggregated economic activity under the substantial effects test.

Necessary and Proper Clause

Article I grants Congress power to make laws necessary and proper to carry out its enumerated powers; it expands means but creates no independent substantive authority.

Dormant Commerce Clause

State laws discriminating against interstate commerce are presumptively invalid absent a legitimate local purpose not served by nondiscriminatory means; nondiscriminatory burdens are balanced.

Preemption types

Federal law displaces state law through express preemption, field preemption of a pervasive regulatory scheme, or conflict preemption where compliance with both is impossible.

Anti-commandeering rule

The Tenth Amendment bars Congress from compelling states to enact or administer federal regulatory programs or commandeer state executive officials to enforce federal law.

Spending power conditions

Congress may attach conditions to federal funds if they serve the general welfare, are unambiguous, relate to the federal interest, and are not coercive.

Youngstown framework

Presidential power depends on congressional action: at its maximum with authorization, uncertain in the twilight of silence, and at its lowest when acting against express congressional will.

Eleventh Amendment immunity

States are generally immune from private suits in federal court, subject to waiver, suits against state officials for prospective relief, and valid congressional abrogation under Section 5.

Incorporation doctrine

The Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause applies most Bill of Rights protections against the states, including free speech, free exercise, and criminal procedure guarantees.

Incitement standard

Speech may be punished when it is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to produce such action under the Brandenburg test.

Commercial speech test

Commercial speech receives intermediate scrutiny: the government must show a substantial interest, the regulation must directly advance it, and it must be narrowly tailored.

Obscenity test

Material is obscene under Miller if it appeals to prurient interest, depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and lacks serious value under community standards.

Second Amendment standard

Heller protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense; Bruen requires government to identify a historical tradition of analogous regulation.

One person, one vote

The Equal Protection Clause requires state legislative and congressional districts to be substantially equal in population, with stricter tolerance for congressional districts.

Political gerrymandering

Rucho held that claims of partisan gerrymandering present a nonjusticiable political question for federal courts, though racial gerrymandering remains subject to strict scrutiny.

Dobbs and abortion

Dobbs overruled Roe and Casey, holding there is no federal constitutional right to abortion and returning regulation to the states under rational basis review.