Do you think the supreme court should have the power to declare an act of congress unconstitutional?
139395
Yes I do, and so did the founding fathers.  It's all a part of our separation of powers in the US Government.
677007
I am a 3rd year law student and the answer is pretty much "yes". After a long line of cases after the Burger Court, the Court has been very deferential to allowing Congress to regulate activities "affecting, involved in or substantially affecting" interstate commerce. There are certain situations where it would be blantatly out of Congress's power to regulate (like something purely intrastate) but for the most part, Congress can regulate about any activity that has a substantial affect on interstate commerce.
705324
Only for non-US citizens.\n\nThe MCA directly contradicts Supreme Court precedent, and the plain text of the constitution, which mandates that 5th and 6th Amendment protections apply to anyone held in custody by the US govt, and anyone prosecuted by the US govt.\n\nIt also directly violates Article I Section 9, by suspending the writ of Habeas Corpus. As the Supreme Court ruled over a hundred years ago, the phrase "except during rebellion or invasion when the public safety may require it" means that as long as the federal courts are open for business, they can hear Habeas petitions for anyone detained or held prisoner by the federal government.  \n\nThe law is facially unconstitutional. The only question is, can someone come up with a creative jurisdictional standing argument and find a way to get a federal court to hear the constitutional challenge?
921439
I have ATTEMPTED to read it.  It doesn't say much by itself.  It is like trying to read and understand the IRS code.  The MCA keeps referring to other laws; to get the meaning you would have to read all of those, and those refer to OTHER laws, ad infinitum.\n\nI have read some analysis of it and it is horrifying.  I am sure that the Supreme Court will declare it unconstitutional.  After all, the law takes away the authority of the Court and the Court is not likely to be happy with losing its power.
990930
Dude, calm down.\nFirst of all, the Constitution and its amendments are not laws.  If something contradicts the constitution it is deemed unconstitutional.  Not illegal.\nSecond.  Bush can't write a bill let alone pass a bill.  Did you ever hear that School House Rock song "I'm Only A Bill". . .Only Congress can pass law and write bills.  The president can either sign it, veto it, or ignore it.  Learn some civics.  What you are referring to is Executive Order 13198 (and a handful of others subsequent to this one) executed on January 29, 2001.  And before you go jumping off a bridge, read them carefully.  They don't say what you apparently think.\nThird.  You are incorrect about your interpretation of the Supreme Court rulings regarding whatever specific faith based initiative you are stuck on.  If the Supreme Court has ruled and it exists, you must be wrong.  QED.\nFourth.  Saying that you don't mind as long as ALL religions are represented is a very cute way of avoiding saying what's really in your heart.  If we represent ALL then we really are representing NONE.\nLast.  There are numerous things that are better done by religious and other community organizations (as opposed to the government).  For example, the Catholic Church does a wonderful job providing adoption services for disabled orphans.  A better job than the government.  The church avoids some of the thornier issues regarding church/state by separating its adoption services from its core purpose (to grossly paraphrase, a requirement for receiving federal money).\nBut really dude, calm down.
1159593
Absolutely not.  My favorite, if not the best, example would be the thousands of gun control laws on the books.  These are clearly in violation of the 2nd Amendment which states quite clearly (in easy-to-understand, one- and two-syllable English words) that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.\n\nAnother example is the way the "necessary and proper" clause has come to mean "convenient."  When the Supreme Court can re-define words in the Constitution to mean whatever they want, then what's the point of having a Constitution in the first place?\n\nThe interstate commerce clause has been stretched to absurd proportions so that Congress can now regulate anything that it wants based on the fact that somebody, somewhere might have once traded with someone in another state.\n\nDoes anyone remember the 9th and 10th Amendments, which tell us that the federal government is only allowed to do those few things which are specifically stated in the Constitution?  And yet there are volumes upon volumes of federal statutes that micromanage our lives.\n\nThe American people, through ignorance and apathy, have allowed their government to get by with this.  I know of no solution.  If the people have more faith in legal interpretations and judges' rulings than in their own ability to understand the simple words written down where all can see, then they deserve the tyrannical, authoritarian state that they are destined to get.\n\nFinally, I want to add that I once took a college course called "Constitutional Rights and Liberties."  But the curriculum was focused not around what those rights and liberties are, but on what judges have said about them.  It was a study in case law.  When people are taught that case law is more important than what the Constitution actually says, the outcome is predictable.  We come to depend on the government to interpret for us the document that is supposed to limit its scope of power.  Isn't this like signing a lease with a landlord that says the landlord gets to decide at any point on any question what the lease says?  Isn't re-defining "necessary" to mean "convenient" analogous to re-defining "$400 per month" to mean "$600 per month?"
938256
Without knowing which state you are referring to it is impossible to know which laws you are asking about.\n\nDriving is a privilege, not a right. So yes the state should have this power.\n\nNo offense but Yahoo Answers has a spellcheck function built right in. You just have to click "check spelling" before you post.
56012
Of course not. You should be the first one to obey the constitution because you swore to abide by it
250216
is a landmark case in United States law, the basis for the exercise of judicial review of Federal statutes by the United States Supreme Court as a constitutional power. The Court ruled that it had the power to declare void a statute which it considered repugnant to the United States Constitution. Chief Justice John Marshall presided over the case, and used the case to legally establish the right of the judiciary—and in particular, the Supreme Court— to overrule the actions of coequal branches of government and thus laid the basis for the current power of the Supreme Court.
865275
I don't know of such a plan, but if it existed, James Madison et. al. took care of that when they drafted the 10th Amendment to the Constitution (part of our Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791). \n\nIt says that any powers not expressly given to the Federal government belong to either the individual states or to the people.\n\nSure would be nice if Congress re-read its own Constitution from time to time, wouldn't it?
1108699
No, because it's blatantly unconstitutional and ultimately circumvents the whole point between having a separated executive and legislative branch.\n\nLine Item Veto power gives the President the power to effectively change the intent of any law Congress passes to suit his whims by simply marking out those sections of laws he does not like... and unlike the system we have now, with a line-item veto, there are absolutely no checks and balances in place to prevent him from doing so egregiously because, once he is done re-writing the law to suit him, he can simply sign it into law and be done with it (meaning the person who writes the law is now the person who decides if his judgment is valid, rather than having an outside check on his judgment in case it isn't reasonable).\n\nThe whole point of giving the President veto power over a whole bill so he has to either approve it in the form it is presented to him, or veto it in that form and return it to Congress, is to leave the power to legislate with the legislative body where it belongs.  Considering the veto in its current form, the President must present his reasoning for overturning the will of the legislature and place the matter back into their hands for them to decide how best to appropriately address the President's objections, or even if they have any merit, and then afford the legislature an opportunity to revise the bill or force its passage without the President's consent... again, leaving the power to define laws in the hands of a diverse legislative body whose debate, by necessity, must reflect a wider spectrum of values than just the values, than that of a single man.\n\nLine item veto power sabotages this critical process and places the power to determine the final nature and intent of laws not in the hands of the legislative body which was intended to conceive and define them, but in the hands of a single man who may, at the eleventh hour, choose to simply recraft the law to his desires and then pass it without so much as consulting a single person as to whether or not what he has just done is in the best interests of the people.\n\nEven Congress was not allowed so much power as to determine the laws without having some sort of outside check to determine whether the law is fair, just, and wise (hopefully) before allowing it to become a law imposed on the people.  Why should it be allowed to the President?\n\nThese are safeguards which were put in place because we know how easily such unilateral power can be abused when placed in the hands of a single person.  Giving the President line item veto power is tantamount to removing safeguards the balance of history has proven beyond a doubt the wisdom of having in place.\n\nIf the question is whether or not I would specifically support George W. Bush (as opposed to any President) having such a power, I would not, even if it were restricted to specific types of legislation such as budgetary legislation.\n\nEven restricted to budgetary concerns, the line-item veto would leave President Bush the power to vastly redefine the intent of the legislature and reshape the country as he saw fit (for instance, it doesn't seem to have occurred to people such a budgetary power would allow him to defund court districts which are traditionally more liberal, or do away with any social programs he simply didn't like, from AIDS research grants to medical care for the disabled and help with family planning, arts endowments, programs which encouarage inner-city development or minority enrichment, etc).\n\nIt also seems to be his habit to want to accumulate more unchecked power around himself so he can unilaterally force his will on everyone else.  President Bush's actions have not been the actions of a man interested in being the elected leader of a democratic nation.  They're the actions of a man who wants to be an autocrat.\n\nConsider what he does.\n\nPresident Bush has made almost every decision he makes
1009831
It has already been decided by the states.\nBack when country was founded, what few states there were ratified the Constitution and the first amendment.\n\nThe Constitution can be revised by an amendment, which is voted for by state Representatives, they represent their states.\n\nshould the bill have gone through the amendment to the Constitution would have to be ratified by the states themselves rather than Representatives.\n\nthere through representation the states or rather the people have spoken.\n\nThe supreme court does its job interpret if a law infringes on the Constitution, and flag burning laws do infringe.\n\n\nI know what your getting at by state by state but the matter is a constitutional first amendment question and laws passed on the state level will eventually reach the courts to be tested against the Constitution...sorry.\n\nThe state has a remedy in the courts, and its own legislative meaning why not legislate that all flags be made from fire proof materials.
57404
Yes. Privacy rights should be the subject of the next amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  I recognize, of course, that several landmark cases have made privacy a "fundamental" right under the U.S. Supreme Court's interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, but I do not feel safe given the progressively more conservative orientation of the Court.  If and when Judge Alito joins the Court, silenced will be the voice of Justice O'Connor, an important voice of reason on the subject of privacy.  An amendment could explicitly enumerate what privacy rights are protected and inviolable.
866072
No.  Under Article I, Section 8, only Congress has the power to declare war.\n\nI don't know the Mexican laws to be able to say what your rights are, in terms of defending your own home in Mexico.
446204
In a ideal situation we should remove the laws that restrict posession by law abiding citizens.\n\nBut more importantly...\n\nENFORCE the laws we already have.
142460
No -- the law already provides means for the President to act in emergencies.  Claiming the right to do anything at all in "wartime" in furtherance of "national security" -- including the sole right to define "wartime" and "national security" is extremely dangerous.  Even with checks and balances in place this country has jailed pacifists (not draft resisters, simply opponents of WW 1) and imprisoned citizens of Japanese descent -- for no reason other than their race.  It will be far worse if no checks of law or balances from the courts and Congress remain.
716014
Yes. But this has become a gray area, because it used to be that the Federal law was limited by the Constitution to certain areas, and denied the rest. However, this has changed, and the Federal government is now, and has been for decades, legislating on things they have absolutely no constitutional authority to be meddling with.\n\nAnd the majority of Americans think this is a good thing, which it isn't, and they fail to connect this usurpation of powers with the  fact that they feel their freedoms and rights are being taken away. Un-believable.