Constitution
The fundamental principles of a government and the basic structures and procedures by which the government operates to fulfill those principles. May be written or unwritten.
What is a constitution?
Safeguards for those accused of crime; these rights constrain government conduct in investigating crimes, trying cases, and punishing offenders.
What is due process (or criminal due process rights)?
The idea that, in a democracy, only policies with 50% plus one vote are enacted.
What is majority rule?
Active, but nonviolent, refusal to comply with laws or governmental policies that are morally objectionable, while accepting the consequences of violating these laws.
What is civil disobedience?
What is Black Lives Matter?
The first 10 amendments to the Constitution, which were ratified in 1791, constituting an enumeration of the individual liberties with which the government is forbidden to interfere.
What is the Bill of Rights
A criminal procedural rule, established in a 1966 case, requiring police to inform criminal suspects, on their arrest, of their legal righs, such as the right to remain silent and the right to counsel; these warnings must be read to suspects before interrogation.
What are Miranda rights
An agreement between people and their leaders in which the opeple agree to give up some liberties so that their other liberties are protected.
What is the social contract? (or social contract theory)
The Fourteenth Amendment clause stating that no state shall “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
What is the "equal protection clause?"
A way to change the Constitution (perhaps drastically) besides Congress proposing and voting on Amendments.
What is a Constitutional Convention (or an Article V Convention)?
Court authority to determine that an action taken by any government official or governing body violates the Constitution; established by the Supreme Court in the 1803 Marbury vs. Madison case.
What is judicial review
First Amendment clause that bars the gonvernment from passing any law "respecting an establishment of religion"; often interpreted as a separation of church and state.
What is the establishment clause
A union of independent states in which each state retains its sovereignty, that is, its ultimate power to govern, and agrees to work collaboratively on matters the states expressly agree to delegate to a central governing body.
What is a confederation (or confederacy)?
Distinctions based on race, religion, and national origin, which are assumed to be illegitimate.
What are suspect classifications?
The portion of this law known as the "individual mandate" (to buy health insurance) was challenged as unconstitutional. It was ultimately upheld, but it generated considerable controversy when the case took place in 2012.
What is the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare)?
Presidents are not chosen by nationwide popular vote. This group of representatives, elected by voters in each state, votes to elect the U.S. president.
What is the Electoral College?
A standard established in the 1969 Brandenburg v. Ohio case, whereby speech is restricted only if it goes beyond mere advocacy or words, to create a high likelihood of imminent disorder or lawlessness.
What is the imminent lawless action test (or incitement test, or Brandenburg test)?
What are The Federalist Papers?
The 1954 Supreme Court case in which the "separate but equal" doctrine was overturned as unconstitutional. It ruled that segregated schools violated the 14th Amendment.
What is Brown v. Board of Education?
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was controversially modified as a result of this Supreme Court case in 2013.
The compromise between the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan that created the bicameral legislature with one chamber's representation based on population and the other chamber having two members for each state.
What is the Connecticut Compromise (or the Great Compromise)?
A three part test established in 1971 to determine whether government aid to parochial (religious) schools was legal. The test involves deciding whether government funding creates "an excessive entanglement between church and state."
What is the Lemon test?
Citizens' belief that they have the ability to achieve something desirable and that the government listens to people like them.
What is efficacy?
The courts use this test to determine the legality of suspect classification based discrimination; on the basis of this test, discrimination is legal it if is a necessary means by which the government can achieve a compelling public interest.
What is the strict scrutiny test?
Placing these monuments of these beside courthouses and other government buildings is rather common, though their placement is often challenged by activist groups who claim that it is a violation of the establishment clause, which has been interpreted as calling for the separation of church and state.
What are the Ten Commandments?