The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), Pub.L. 104–132 (text)(PDF), 110 Stat. 1214, enacted April 24, 1996, was introduced to the United States Congress in April 1995 as a Senate Bill. The bill was presented by then-Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole and passed with broad bipartisan support by Congress following the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. It was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
Proposition 200, the "Arizona Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act", was an Arizona state initiative passed in 2004 that basically requires: (a) persons to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote; (b) voters to present a photo identification before receiving a ballot at the polling place; and (c) state and local agencies to verify the identity and eligibility, based on immigration status, of applicants for non-federally mandated public benefits. The proposition also makes it a misdemeanor for public officials to fail to report violations of U.S. immigration law by applicants for those public benefits and permits private lawsuits by any resident to enforce its provisions related to public benefits. The requirement to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote was later ruled invalid in federal court.
The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI), or Proposal 2, was a ballot initiative in the U.S. state of Michigan that passed into Michigan Constitutional law by a 58% to 42% margin on November 7, 2006, according to results officially certified by the Michigan Secretary of State. By Michigan law, the Proposal became law on December 22, 2006. MCRI was a citizen initiative aimed at banning consideration of race, color, sex, or religion in admission to colleges, jobs, and other publicly funded institutions – effectively prohibiting some affirmative action by public institutions based on those factors. The Proposal's constitutionality was challenged in federal court, but its constitutionality was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States.
Leon Drolet is a Michigan Republican politician and elected Macomb County Commissioner. He is a political activist known for his conservative fiscal views, which have caused criticism from politicians from both sides, including Candace Miller, l Brooks Patterson and Mark Hackel. He is also known for his support of the Constitution Party and endorsement of several of its candidates. From 2001 to 2006 Drolet served in the Michigan House of Representatives. Drolet also served as a Macomb County, Michigan county commissioner from 1999 to 2000 and from 2006 to 2008.
We the People Foundation for Constitutional Education, Inc. also known as We the People Foundation is a non-profit education and research organization in Queensbury, New York with the declared mission "to protect and defend individual Rights as guaranteed by the Constitutions of the United States." It was founded by Robert L. Schulz. At the U.S. Department of Justice, he is known as a "high-profile tax protester". The Southern Poverty Law Center asserts that Schulz is the head of the leading organization in the tax protester movement. The organization formally served a petition for redress of grievances regarding income tax upon the United States government in November 2002. In July 2004, it filed a lawsuit in an unsuccessful attempt to force the government to address the petition. The organization has also served petitions relating to other issues since then.
The Virginia State Board of Elections (SBE) was created in 1946 as a nonpolitical agency responsible for ensuring uniformity, fairness, accuracy and purity in all elections in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The SBE promotes the proper administration of election laws, campaign finance disclosure compliance, and voter registration processes in the state by promulgating rules, regulations, issuing instructions, and providing information to local electoral boards and general registrars. In addition, the SBE maintains a centralized database of statewide voter registration and election related data.
Lee v. Keith, 463 F.3d 763 was a case in which, on September 18, 2006, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit struck down Illinois' ballot access laws, opining:
In combination, the ballot access requirements for independent legislative candidates in Illinois--the early filing deadline, the 10% signature requirement, and the additional statutory restriction that disqualifies anyone who signs an independent candidate's nominating petition from voting in the primary--operate to unconstitutionally burden the freedom of political association guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Ballot access barriers this high--they are the most restrictive in the nation and have effectively eliminated independent legislative candidacies from the Illinois political scene for a quarter of a century--are not sustainable based on the state's asserted interest in deterring party splintering, factionalism, and frivolous candidacies.
Yes on Term Limits v. Savage, 550 F.3d 1023, is a case in which challenged Oklahoma's residency requirements for petition circulators. In 2007, the organization Oklahoma Yes on Term Limits filed a federal lawsuit against Oklahoma Secretary of State Susan Savage on First Amendment grounds. At the time, Oklahoma required petition circulators to be a state resident which it argued was "narrowly tailored" to uphold the integrity of the petitioning process in the state.
Nader v. Brewer, 531 F.3d 1028 is a 2008 decision by the Ninth Circuit ruling that certain Arizona voting regulations were unconstitutional under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Bogaert v. Land was a federal lawsuit filed on July 18, 2008, in the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan by Rose Bogaert against Terri Lynn Land in Land's official capacity as Michigan Secretary of State. Bogaert claimed that her rights under the U.S. Constitution were violated by MCL 168.957, the Michigan statute that forbids recall signatures to be collected by people who live in a district other than the district of the legislator whose recall is sought. The action filed by Bogaert was a 42 U.S.C. 1983 civil rights action.
A tax protester is someone who refuses to pay a tax claiming that the tax laws are unconstitutional or otherwise invalid. Tax protesters are different from tax resisters, who refuse to pay taxes as a protest against a government or its policies, or a moral opposition to taxation in general, not out of a belief that the tax law itself is invalid. The United States has a large and organized culture of people who espouse such theories. Tax protesters also exist in other countries.
Buckley v. American Constitutional Law Foundation, Inc., 525 U.S. 182 (1999), was a United States Supreme Court case that dealt with the authority of states to regulate the electoral process, and the point at which state regulations of the electoral process violate the First Amendment freedoms.
Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23 (1968), was a case before the United States Supreme Court.
The Citizens in Charge Foundation (CCF) is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that advocates in favor of direct democracy. It was founded by libertarian activist Paul Jacob who has served as its president since its founding in 2001.
Doe v. Reed, 561 U.S. 186 (2010), is a United States Supreme Court case which holds that the disclosure of signatures on a referendum does not violate the Petition Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Meyer v. Grant, 486 U.S. 414 (1988), was an important decision by the United States Supreme Court on paid petition circulation. Colorado was one of several states with a process for citizens to propose initiatives for the ballot, which if passed became law. One of the requirements was to get the signatures of a significant number of registered Colorado electors. Colorado prohibited initiative sponsors from paying for the circulation of these petitions. The state argued this was necessary to "protect[...] the integrity of the initiative."
McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, 514 U.S. 334 (1995), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that an Ohio statute prohibiting anonymous campaign literature is unconstitutional because it violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects the freedom of speech. In a 7–2 decision authored by Justice John Paul Stevens, the Court found that the First Amendment protects the decision of an author to remain anonymous.
Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), there have been numerous actions in federal courts to challenge the constitutionality of the legislation. They include challenges by states against the ACA, reactions from legal experts with respect to its constitutionality, several federal court rulings on the ACA's constitutionality, the final ruling on the constitutionality of the legislation by the U.S. Supreme Court in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, and notable subsequent lawsuits challenging the ACA. The Supreme Court upheld ACA for a third time in a June 2021 decision.
Cannabis in South Dakota is legal for medical use as of July 1, 2021, having been legalized by a ballot initiative on November 3, 2020. Prior to then, cannabis was fully illegal, with South Dakota being the only U.S. state which outlawed ingestion of controlled substances. Testing positive for cannabis can be a misdemeanor offense. South Dakota would have become the first state in US history to legalize recreational and medical cannabis simultaneously, but an amendment legalizing recreational marijuana that was approved in the same election was struck down as unconstitutional the following February. The challenge claimed the amendment violated Amendment Z, the "Single-Subject Rule". The decision was appealed to the South Dakota Supreme Court, which upheld the lower court's decision on November 24, 2021.
Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465 (1976), was decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that limited which claims of Fourth Amendment violations could be made by state prisoners in habeas corpus petitions in federal courts. Specifically, a claim that the exclusionary rule had been broken would be barred if state courts had already given it a full and fair hearing. The decision combined two cases that were argued before the Supreme Court on the same day with similar issues, one filed by Lloyd Powell and the other, titled Wolff v. Rice, filed by David Rice.
