Terms and Cases
Module 11
Chapters 11 and 12
Cases – Chapters 11
Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co. (1895): Invalidated the income tax
as unconstitutional; the decision was overturned by ratification of the
Sixteenth Amendment. The Sixteenth Amendment was designed to give
constitutional authority for a national income tax. The original Constitution
had provided in
Article I, Section 9, that:
No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to
the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.
On the basis of this elusive language that did not specifically define a “direct
tax,” the Supreme Court had, in Pollock v. Farmer’s Loan and Trust
Company (1895), declared that a tax on income was a direct tax and that,
as a tax on such income rather than on a state’s population, it was
therefore void. The Sixteenth Amendment reversed this judgment, the third
such amendment to overturn a Supreme Court decision
Terms – Chapter 11
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Blue Laws: Laws requiring the closure of certain
businesses or forbidding the sale of certain items on
Sundays.
Direct Taxes: Unidentified taxes, prohibited from being
laid by Article I, Section 9 except according to a state’s
population. The prohibition against direct taxes has been
superseded by the legalization of the income tax in the
Sixteenth Amendment.
Progressive Era: The time period early in the twentieth
century during which there was a strong push for reform
and democratization. Amendments 16 through 19 are
associated with this period.
Terms – Chapter 11
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Ratification: Formal approval. The Constitution
requires that treaties be ratified by two-thirds of
the Senate and constitutional amendments by
three-fourths of the state legislatures or
conventions.
Seneca Falls Convention: A convention that
met in New York in 1848 and issued a call for
women’s suffrage that eventually resulted in
adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment (1920).
Cases – Chapter 12
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Coleman v. Miller (1939) The question of assessing
contemporaneousness to amendments has been left in
Coleman v. Miller (1939) to Congress, and it accepted the
27th amendment by an overwhelming vote on May 20, 1992.
Dillon v. Gloss (1921) stated that an amendment should
reflect a contemporary consensus to its limit. On the negative
side for the 27th amendment, ratifications spread out over a
two-hundred-year period stretch the idea.
Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966), the
Supreme Court voided the use of such poll taxes in state
elections on the authority of the equal protection clause of
the Fourteenth Amendment. The right to vote can now be
exercised regardless of one’s ability to pay for this privilege.
Cases – Chapter 12
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Marbury v. Madison (1803): In turning away a request by an
individual who had been appointed as a justice of the
peace but had never received his commission, the Court
ruled that a section of the Judiciary Act of 1789 that
seemed to grant the Court original jurisdiction was
unconstitutional and therefore void, therefore asserting
the Court’s power of judicial review. Lame-duck
representatives, readers may recall, created the judicial
seats that came to be contested in the case of Marbury
v. Madison (1803), which established the principle of
judicial review of national legislation. Similarly, in 1873,
an outgoing Congress had approved the so-called Salary
Grab Act, boosting salaries form $5,000 to $7,500 per
year and applying the law retroactively to the beginning
of the session, while in 1922 an outgoing Congress had
adopted a ship subsidy bill, despite the fact that voters
had rejected many of the bill’s sponsors.
Cases – Chapter 12
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Oregon v. Mitchell (1970) An attempt to extend the
franchise to eighteen-year-olds by legislation was struck
down by the Supreme Court, congressional power being
recognized in the case of federal but not state elections.
Fearing that different standards could lead to an election
nightmare, Congress proposed and the states quickly
ratified the Twenty-sixth Amendment to eliminate this
disparity.
United States v. Classic (1941) declared that
primaries were so integral to the electoral process that
they were limited by constitutional restrictions.
Terms – Chapter 12
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Emoluments: A constitutional term used to
refer to salaries or other monetary rewards.
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Franchise: The right to vote
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Grandfather Clauses: Provisions, directed
against racial minorities and eventually
overturned by the courts, which restricted voting
to those who could prove that their grandfathers
had voted prior to 1867, that is, prior to the time
that African Americans were given this right.
Terms – Chapter 12
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Lame Ducks: Elected officials who are finishing out their terms but
already know that they will not be returning to office. The Twentieth
Amendment shortened the period during which lame-duck presidents
and members of Congress serve.
Literacy Tests: Tests, now suspended by law, which were once a
prerequisite for exercising the right to vote; such tests, combined with
“understanding clauses,” were often administered in a racially
discriminatory fashion.
Poll Taxes: Taxes levied as a condition to voting. The Twenty-fourth
Amendment prohibited the payment of such poll taxes as a condition for
voting in federal elections.
Suffrage: The right to vote.
Ex-Felon Disenfranchisement
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The roots of felony disenfranchisement
laws can be traced back to ancient Greek
and Roman traditions. Disenfranchisement
was commonly imposed on individuals
convicted of "infamous" crimes as part of
their "civil death," whereby these persons
would lose all rights and claim to property.
The practice of disenfranchisement was
transplanted to American by English
settlers.
Ex-Felon Disenfranchisement
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Upon the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, giving
African-Americans the right to vote, Southern States
began to use seemingly neutral voting qualifications e.g. literacy tests, property requirements, grandfather
clauses, tests for good moral character and criminal
disenfranchisement - to deny the vote to blacks. While
disenfranchisement laws had existed long before these
practices began, a number of Southern States tailored
these laws to maximize their impacts on AfricanAmericans. Unlike most other laws that burden the right
of citizens to vote based on some form of social status,
felony disenfranchisement laws have been held to be
constitutional.
Ex-Felon Disenfranchisement
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In Richardson v. Ramirez, the United States
Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of
felon disenfranchisement statutes, finding that
the practice did not deny equal protection to
disenfranchised voters. The Court looked to
Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the
United States Constitution, which proclaims that
States which deny the vote to male citizens,
except on the basis of "participation of rebellion,
or other crime," will suffer a reduction in
representation.
Ex-Felon Disenfranchisement
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Based on this language, the Court found that
this amounted to an "affirmative sanction" of the
practice of felon disenfranchisement, and the
14th Amendment could not prohibit in one
section that which is expressly authorized in
another. However, many critics, argue that
Section 2 of the 14th Amendment does not
represent an endorsement of felon
disenfranchisement statutes as constitutional in
light of the equal protection clause; but is
limited only to the issue of reduced
representation.
Ex-Felon Disenfranchisement
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The United States Supreme Court has generally
upheld felony disenfranchisement laws, but has
at the same time struck down those that were
clearly intended to disenfranchise particular
racial groups, or which allowed
disenfranchisement based on the commission of
acts so minor that they could not be classified as
felonies.
Ex-Felon Disenfranchisement
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Current Application
Today, only four states continue to impose a life-long
denial of the right to vote to all citizens with a felony
record, absent some extraordinary intervention by the
Governor or State legislature. These are Florida, Iowa,
Kentucky, and Virginia. In July, 2005, Iowa Governor
Vilsack issued an executive order restoring the right to
vote for all persons who have completed supervision.
However, the lifetime prohibition on voting remains Iowa
law. Nine other states disenfranchise ex-felons for various
lengths of time following the completion of their probation
or parole. Almost every state prohibits felons from voting
while incarcarated, on probation, or on parole.
Salaries
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The current salary for rank-and-file members of the
House and Senate is $158,100 per year.
Senate Leadership
Majority Leader - $175,600
Minority Leader - $175,600
House Leadership
Speaker of the House - $203,000
Majority Leader - $175,600
Minority Leader - $175,600
Current salary for the Chief Justice is around $202,900
per year, while Associate Justices make about $194,200.
President’s Salary is $400,000
Salaries
 From
1789 to 1815, members of
Congress received only a per
diem (daily payment) of $6.00
while in session. Members began
receiving an annual salary in
1815, when they were paid
$1,500 per year.