Constitutional Law
Scope
Constitutional Law questions test judicial review, justiciability, Fourteenth Amendment due process and equal protection, First Amendment speech and religion, and the dormant Commerce Clause. Michigan's 1963 Constitution contains parallel provisions (for example, art. 1, § 2 on equal protection), and Michigan courts generally construe them consistently with federal doctrine, so the federal framework is the working tool.
Justiciability
- Standing requires injury in fact, causation, and redressability; taxpayer standing fails except for Establishment Clause spending challenges.
- Ripeness bars premature claims; mootness bars stale ones, subject to capable-of-repetition-yet-evading-review and voluntary cessation.
- The political question doctrine removes issues textually committed to other branches.
Levels of scrutiny
Strict scrutiny (compelling interest, narrow tailoring) governs suspect classifications and fundamental rights; intermediate scrutiny (important interest, substantial relation) governs sex; rational basis governs everything else, including age and wealth.
Speech
Content-based regulation gets strict scrutiny; content-neutral time, place, and manner rules need an important interest, narrow tailoring, and alternative channels. Prior restraints carry a heavy presumption of invalidity.
Worked example
Michigan requires all eggs sold in the state to be graded at a Michigan-licensed facility. An Indiana producer sues. The law is facially discriminatory against interstate commerce, so it faces strict scrutiny under the dormant Commerce Clause; the market-participant defense fails because the state is regulating rather than buying, and the challenger wins absent proof that no nondiscriminatory alternative exists.
Traps
Using rational basis for gender; treating a state subsidy condition as automatically valid when it penalizes protected activity; and confusing the state-action requirement with state funding.