Amendment CP
Plan: The United States should amend its national Constitution to _______
unconstitutional. The US Congress should initiate the process. The US Supreme Court
should not review any cases concerning this amendment in the next two terms.
The Counterplan solves.
NCC Staff 13 [National Constitution center, June 17, 2013, The Next 10 Amendments: Do we need more laws to protect
privacy? http://news.yahoo.com/constitutional-amendment-protect-privacy-133028314.html] Achal Patel
The furor in the past two weeks over government eavesdropping on the media and citizens has raised a
lot of questions related to the First Amendment and the Fourth Amendment. Government actions to monitor the phone
records of the Associated Press and track the activities of a Fox News reporter started a debate about the First
Amendment. And last week’s revelations about widespread government collection of phone call data—
followed by broader claims about data collection involving the Internet—started a whole new argument
about the Fourth Amendment. Those are just a few of the issues about privacy that have been debated over the past year. There’s also the pesky issue of drones and other
forms of technology that can do much good, but also cause massive privacy invasions in the wrong
circumstances. And there’s the issue of when and how police can enter your home. As for the
government surveillance programs, the Obama administration and Congress members say the activities
of the National Security Agency are approved and monitored by all three government branches, in
accordance with the Constitution. In past court decisions, the Fourth Amendment has been applied to support privacy rights—to learn more about the evolution of privacy rights, National
Constitution Center president Jeffrey Rosen suggests the five must-read books about privacy issues that are now all too contemporary.
Amendments best solve for rights.
Ehling 12 Matt Ehling | 10/04/12 Minnesotans need to better evaluate when (and why) to amend
their constitution
https://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2012/10/minnesotans-needbetter-evaluate-when-and-why-amend-their-constitution
Rights can either be granted by statute (through legislative action) or through a constitution's
provisions. The former tend to be more specific in nature, and can change with social needs and desires.
The latter tend to be broader philosophical statements that guarantee individual rights by permanently
restraining governmental powers. There has been just one amendment made to the U.S. Constitution that has exclusively constrained individual
conduct, and it was short-lived. The most durable and stable constitutional amendments have been those that have
secured broad-based rights for the people. One can recognize this by looking to the earliest history of the U.S. Constitution. As
originally written, the federal Constitution contained almost no guarantees of individual rights, save for
the "privilege of the writ of habeas corpus." Because of this, a political struggle ensued, and the
Constitution was ratified under the terms of a brokered deal that added 10 rights-based amendments to
the original text. These amendments constituted the Bill of Rights a group of amendments that has
survived for over 200 years because of its close correlation to our nation's guiding philosophy of
securing individual liberty.
Amendments can overrule court decisions.
Schaffner, 05
(Associate Law Professor – GW, 54 Am. U.L. Rev. 1487)
the only "check" on
judicial power of constitutional interpretation is the constitutional amendment process. The
amendment process should be used to overturn the Court only when it acts beyond its powers or
inconsistently with constitutional principles. Otherwise, the careful balance of powers among the branches is compromised.
Because the judicial branch has the ultimate authority over constitutional interpretation and construction,
The history of amending the Constitution to overrule Supreme Court decisions is consistent with this view and is particularly relevant here.
While the U.S. Supreme Court is not being overturned by the FMA, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's Goodridge decision is in
jeopardy. Goodridge was the catalyst for the fervor behind the proposed marriage amendment. Moreover, the FMA will forever prevent the
U.S. Supreme Court from addressing the issue.
Only four constitutional amendments have been adopted to overrule the Supreme Court. 186 They are: (1)
the Eleventh Amendment, which overruled Chisolm v. Georgia; 187 (2) the Thirteenth Amendment and, most specifically, the first sentence of
the [*1519] Fourteenth Amendment, 188 which overruled Dred Scott v. Sanford; 189 (3) the Sixteenth Amendment, which overruled Pollack v.
each
amendment was in harmony with the basic principles that underlie the Constitution - individual rights,
separation of powers, and federalism. Moreover, in the cases where fundamental liberty interests were at stake, the
amendment reestablished individual rights in light of the Court's limited interpretation of those rights.
Without analyzing the propriety of the individual Supreme Court decisions, the following will demonstrate that, unlike the FMA, the use of
the amendment power to overrule these cases was proper and consistent with basic democratic
principles.
Farmer's Loan & Trust Co.; 190 and (4) the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, which overruled Oregon v. Mitchell. 191 As we will see,
Mootness DA
2NC – Mootness DA
(A) The perm decides a moot legal question
Watson, Northwestern University Law Review, 1991
(Corey C., “Mootness and the Constitution,” Fall 1991, lexis)
A case becomes "moot" when "its factual or legal context changes in such a way that a justiciable
question no longer is before the court." n32 [*147] Defining mootness as the absence of a justiciable issue, however, merely
raises the question of what is meant by the term "justiciability." n33 The Supreme Court has distinguished a justiciable
controversy "from one that is academic or moot." n34 Accordingly, a justiciable controversy is one that is
"definite and concrete, touching the legal relations of parties having adverse legal interests." n35 The
controversy must be "real and substantial[,] . . . admitting of specific relief through a decree of a
conclusive character, as distinguished from an opinion advising what the law would be upon a
hypothetical state of facts." n36 The rule that a court will not decide a moot case is recognized in virtually
every American jurisdiction. n37 With the concepts of mootness and justiciability so loosely formulated, some scholars have
attempted to understand mootness jurisprudence by cataloguing the various circumstances which render a case moot. n38 A case may
become moot because the alleged wrong passes and cannot be expected to recur; n39 because a defendant pays money owed [*148] and
no longer wishes to appeal; n40 because a criminal defendant dies while appealing his case; n41 because the law under which the
suit was brought has since changed; n42 or because a party is no longer affected by the challenged
statute. n43 Indeed, the Court has attempted to generalize the causes of mootness by declaring a case moot
when it finds either (a) that the issues presented are no longer "live" or (b) that the "'parties lack a legally
cognizable interest in the outcome.'" n44 These are commonly referred to as the "live issue" and "personal stake" requirements.
n45 For a party to satisfy the live issue test, he must show more than abstract injury. n46 The plaintiff must demonstrate that he "'has sustained
or is immediately in danger of sustaining some direct injury' as the result of the challenged official conduct and the injury or threat of injury
must be both 'real and immediate,' not 'conjectural' or 'hypothetical.'" n47 Finally, the
"personal stake" criterion requires a
"logical nexus between the status asserted and the claim sought to be adjudicated" n48 and a sufficient
degree of "contentiousness." n49
(b) Violates separation of powers
Watson, Northwestern University Law Review, 1991
(Corey C., “Mootness and the Constitution,” Fall 1991, lexis)
Public law model advocates explain that requiring a party's claim to implicate constitutional rights circumscribes judicial power. n156 This,
however, recalls the problems encountered when trying to define the constitutional terms "case" and "controversy." n157 The
public law
model attacks those who pretend to objectively define constitutional terms. Yet, when a model purports to
describe a case as that which implicates constitutional rights, one must ask how to define those rights. All legislative issues must necessarily
implicate "constitutional" issues and rights since the legislative power is constitutionally created. Therefore, although
the public law
model theoretically accounts for a functionally enumerated judicial power, its fundamental principle of a
judicial authority that can reach all issues which touch the Constitution runs afoul of another
constitutional edict: separation of powers. n158 Hence, one is driven to the public law model's second line of defense in limiting
judicial power, the prudential screen. To say that prudential factors beget the mootness doctrine, which begets
justiciability, which begets the case and controversy requirement, which begets judicial power is to say,
in effect, that a judge defines his own jurisdiction. But this is precisely what the Constitution was intended
to prevent: a government that defines its own powers. This recalls the problem of unrestricted judicial
[*164] power encountered under the pure prudential model. The omnipotence of a judge under the public law model
may be even more dangerous because here prudential decision-making is masquerading as a
constitutional doctrine. At least the pure prudential model does not purport to be more than it is.
(c) equivalent of a nuclear war
Martin H. Redish, professor of law at Northwestern, and Elizabeth J. Cisar, Law Clerk to Chief Judge
William Bauer, United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, December 1991, Duke Law Journal, 41
Duke L.J. 449, p. 474
In summary, no defender of separation of powers can prove with certitude that, but for the existence of
separation of powers, tyranny would be the inevitable outcome. But the question is whether we wish to
take that risk, given the obvious severity of the harm that might result. Given both the relatively limited
cost imposed by use of separation of powers and the great severity of the harm sought to be avoided,
one should not demand a great showing of the likelihood that the feared harm would result. For just as
in the case of the threat of nuclear war, no one wants to be forced into the position of saying, “I told you so.”
Ruling on Moot Issue Destroys the Constitution
Violates and destroys the constitution
Watson, Northwestern University Law Review, 1991
(Corey C., “Mootness and the Constitution,” Fall 1991, lexis)
According to the textual constitutional model, the mootness doctrine inheres in a fundamental definition of a case and controversy n106 -thatis, mootness doctrine is directly related to a court's jurisdiction over a case. n107 According to this model, the case or controversy clause of
article III has an identifiable and immutable meaning that dictates the limits on judicial power. n108 This meaning is derived from a natural,
intuitive [*157] understanding of the confines of a case, n109 an historical articulation of this understanding, n110 and a refinement of the
definition through judicial precedent. Although the case and controversy clause may have fluctuated at its margins as it evolved, proponents
maintain that article III has retained a core meaning that is somewhat analogous to the "traditional judicial business of the English courts." n111
Accordingly, article
III "does not extend the judicial power to every violation of the constitution which may
possibly take place, but to 'a case in law or equity,' in which a right, under such law, is asserted in a court
of justice." n112 From this core meaning, according to the model, have sprung various interpretative doctrines which, when taken together,
flesh out the meaning of the case and controversy clause. These doctrines are incorporated under the broad label of
"justiciability." The doctrine of mootness, a species of justiciability, is umbilically attached to the case and controversy clause and is thus
subservient to article III of the Constitution. n113 Hence, the relationship between the mootness doctrine and the
Constitution is symbiotic: the Constitution gave birth to the doctrine of mootness while the doctrine itself illuminates the limitation of
federal judicial power. Although courts are permitted to entertain prudential considerations when deciding questions of jurisdiction, n114 the
model forbids courts from allowing prudential concerns to compromise the fundamental principles of article III. n115 Consequently, whether a
case is justiciable is a threshold question throughout the judicial proceeding which must be answered affirmatively for a court to assume
jurisdiction. n116 [*158] The textual constitutional model, therefore, contends that the language chosen to formulate the Constitution has
particular significance. Attempts
to manipulate this language by superimposing specific value systems n117 or
by tossing prudential factors into the constitutional calculus n118 dissolve the integrity of the
Constitution itself. The Constitution retains flexibility by establishing procedures for its amendment, and
judicial or scholarly glosses which essentially rewrite the Constitution circumvent the amendment
process. Such circumvention, the model asserts, is violent to democratic and representative ideals.
Reject all constitutional violations
Stephen L. Carter, professor of law at Yale University, 1987, Brigham Young University Law Review,
1987 BYU L. Rev. 719, HeinOnline, p. 750-751
The problem with this use of our burgeoning public policy science, an inevitable one in an area of theory driven by instrumental rationality, is
that the law itself is stripped of the aura of uniqueness which is assigned to it in liberal theory. The law becomes all too mutable, and is left as
no more than one of the means that must be tested against its efficacy in achieving the desired end. The Constitution, which is after all a
species of law, is thus quite naturally viewed as a political impediment to policy, a barrier that must be adjusted, through interpretation or
amendment, more often than preservation of government under that Constitution is viewed as a desirable policy in itself. In this the modern
student of policy is like the modern moral philosopher – and like a good number of constitutional theorists as well – in denigrating the value of
preserving any particular process and exalting the desirable result. But
constitutionalism assigns enormous importance to
process, and consequently assigns costs, albeit perhaps intangible ones, to violating the constitutional
process. For the constitutionalist, as for classical liberal democratic theory, the autonomy of the people
themselves, not the achievement of some well-intentioned government policy, is the ultimate end for
which the government exists. As a consequences, no violation of the means the people have approved
for pursuit of policy—here, the means embodied in the structural provisions of the Constitution, can be
justified through reference to the policy itself as the end.
Answer To: “Mootness Doctrine Destroys Judicial Review”
No Link
Watson, Northwestern University Law Review, 1991
(Corey C., “Mootness and the Constitution,” Fall 1991, lexis)
[*172] At first blush, cases of judicial review seem to collide with mootness doctrine as defined in the
proposed model. In this context, pragmatic reasons exist for sustaining a case through the appellate
levels even though the case may have become moot under traditional standards. If the legislation is
unconstitutional, it seems not to matter that the particular parties to the dispute are no longer entitled
to the remedy of repealing the law because, arguably, the law should not have existed in the first place.
Hence, the broad effect of declaring a law unconstitutional seems to conflict with the narrow
requirement of personal stake in the outcome of a case. Anyone, it seems, should be able to challenge
the constitutionality of a law. Under the pure prudential model, or the flexible constitutional model, or
the public law model, a court would probably proceed with the case because it seems a good
investment of judicial resources to repeal an unconstitutional law. The remedy is, practically speaking,
capable of judicial administration. The apparent conflict can be reconciled by recognizing that personal
stake is not constitutionally required in cases of judicial review.