Blog #6: Judicial Branch and the Brown v. Board of Education

The Judicial Branch has had the greatest impact historically on desegregation due to such cases as the Brown vs. Board case, Cooper v. Aaron case, Griffin v. Prince Edward County School Board case, and Swann v. Charlotte-Macklenburg Board of Education. The criticism that Brown failed to address its limited enforcement power and that Brown generated an incredible backlash that actually worsened race relations is fair for many reasons. First, the facts show that less than 1 % of black school-age children in the Deep South were attending schools with whites 10 years after the decision, meaning the Brown decision was not very effective. Part of the reason for this fact is that some states refused to cooperate and used mass resistance to hinder its effectiveness. To counter the massive resistance, large civil rights movements formed, greatly increasing racial tension. Then, to counter civil rights movements, racial movements led by radical white supremists countered the counter movements, often leading to violence, such as the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Also, individual white supremists chose to rebel against the Brown decision by keeping their children home and home-schooling them. Pursuit of federal legislation may have been faster due to having more power to enforce the legislation. But, with the racism that existed during those times, the same types of resistance would have occured, and may have actually been worse and more violent. Overall, though, the final result would have been reached either way, for the Brown decision did for the most part do its job in integrating the South, even though racism is still lurking in the shadows still today.

Blog #5: Selective Incorporation

Selective incorporation is defined as only a selected few of something is held within the principles or definition of another thing. In government, selective incorporation is used to describe how only a few of the Bill of Rights' amendments are selected through judiciary review to be held within the 14th amendment. When the 14th amendment was passed, the American people thought that all of the Bill of Rights' amendments were incorporated into the 14th amendment, which is called total incorporation. However, the Supreme Court made decisions as though the 14th amendment had never been adopted. This followed the trend set by the Court in 1833 in the Barron v. Baltimore case, which upheld both the principle of "dual citizenship" and the principle that the Bill of Rights did not apply to decisions or to procedures of state and local governments. However, following the Quincy v. Chicago case in 1897, the Court started to selectively incorporate the Bill of Rights' amendments into the 14th amendment. One example occurs in 1925 in the Gitlow v. New York case selectively incorporated Freedom of Speech of the 1st amendment into the 14th amendment. In 1937, however, the Supreme Court shows that the Bill of Rights' amendments are selectively incorporated into the 14th amendment through the Palko v. Connecticut decision, which was that the double jeopardy clause of the 5th amendment is not incorporated into the 14th amendment.

AP Essay #1: Federalism, Mandates, and Devolution

In the government, there are a number of programs in which the national government engages in regulated federalism by imposing national standards on the states without providing any funding at all. These fundings are called "unfunded mandates," which are formally defined as national standards or programs imposed on state and local governments by the federal government without accompanying funding or reimbursement. The states complained against this form of regulated federalism because they claimed that mandates took up so much of their budgets that they were not able to set their own priorities. The burden of unfunded mandates became a major rallying cry of the 1994 Republican Congress' Contract with America. One of the first measures adopted by the 104th Republican Congress in 1995 was an act to limit unfunded mandates known as the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA). Considered both a triumph of lobbying efforts by state and local governments and a renewal of federalism, this law stated that any mandate with an uncompensated state and local cost estimated at greater than $50 million a year, as determined by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), can be stopped by a point of order raised on the House or Senate floor. Although it reduced the cost of mandates, the primary impact of the "stop, look, and listen" requirement of the UMRA came not as the affirmative blockage of mandate legislation, but rather, as an expert put it, from "its effect as a deterrent to mandates in the drafting and early consideration of legislation." The act was therefore not a revolutionary answer to the problem of unfunded mandates. The act does, however, represent a serious effort to move the national-state relationship a bit further toward the state side. The UMRA differs from devolution in the sense that the UMRA still places authority in the hands of the federal government. Devolution is defined as a policy to remove a program from one level of government by deregulating it or passing it down to a lower level of government, such as from the national government to the state and local governments. Devolution and "new federalism" would be more effective at reducing unfunded mandates in actual practice because more authority is given to the state governments through block grants, which rival and replace unfunded mandates, and which also simultaneously reduce the costs placed on the state governments because the national government covers some, if not all, of the costs when they are used. Also, the UMRA did not actually reduce unfunded mandates. Instead, it only lowered the costs of the mandates and caused the mandates to be reviewed longer in the drafting and early consideration of legislation. Therefore, devolution and block grants should be used as the primary method to reduce unfunded mandates.

Blog #4: Terri Schiavo

The Terri Schiavo case is a tough decision morally to make, but if the family members wanted to bring it to court, then the government must get involved, but only as much as the Constitution says to. At first, Federalism faded in this case with the passing of the law by the national government that overrided the jurisdiction of the U.S. District Court to preempt the state courts. But, denial by the federal district course, the federal appeals court, and the U.S. Supreme Court made the parents go back to the state courts, reaffirming both state jurisdiction and the principles of Federalism. Separation of powers is also upheld when Governor Jeb Bush denies he has the power to take custody of Terri Schiavo and reconnect her to life support, which would of unjustly surpassed the principles of the separation of powers in the state government. Overall, I think that the decision to choose between life or death should be made by the family. But since the family brought it to court, I believe that Federalism and separation of powers did its part and adhered well for the most part to the principles of Federalism.