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What Mcdonald Means For Unenumerated Rights, Aaron Christopher Bryant
What Mcdonald Means For Unenumerated Rights, Aaron Christopher Bryant
Aaron Christopher Bryant
In June a splintered Supreme Court held in McDonald v. City of Chicago that the Second Amendment applied to state and local governments. But the case was about much more than handguns. It presented the Court with an unprecedented opportunity to correct its erroneous precedent and revive the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause. The plurality declined the offer not, as Justice Alito’s opinion suggested, out of a profound respect for stare decisis, but rather because at least four Justices like the consequences of that ancient error, especially insofar as unenumerated rights are concerned. This observation in turn raises questions …
The Pursuit Of Perfection: Congressional Power To Enforce The Reconstruction Amendments, Aaron Christopher Bryant
The Pursuit Of Perfection: Congressional Power To Enforce The Reconstruction Amendments, Aaron Christopher Bryant
Aaron Christopher Bryant
ABSTRACT In June the Supreme Court avoided a decision on the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act’s pre-clearance requirement, while at the same time managing to foreshadow that provision’s ultimate demise. In a separate opinion, Justice Thomas announced that he would have reached the issue and invalidated the pre-clearance requirement. Conceding that unconstitutional racial discrimination in the administration of elections continued to be an unfortunate reality, he asserted that Congress was not permitted to pursue “perfect compliance” with the Constitution’s mandate via the use of “broad prophylactic legislation.” Justice Thomas’s statement accurately, though to be sure rather starkly, expressed an …