The Eleventh Amendment is an amendment to the United States Constitution which was passed by Congress on March 4, 1794, and ratified by the states on February 7, 1795. The Eleventh Amendment restricts the ability of individuals to bring suit against states in federal court.
The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal government and each state from denying or abridging a citizen's right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." It was ratified on February 3, 1870, as the third and last of the Reconstruction Amendments.
The Dormant Commerce Clause, or Negative Commerce Clause, in American constitutional law, is a legal doctrine that courts in the United States have inferred from the Commerce Clause in Article I of the US Constitution. The primary focus of the doctrine is barring state protectionism. The Dormant Commerce Clause is used to prohibit state legislation that discriminates against, or unduly burdens, interstate or international commerce. Courts first determine whether a state regulation discriminates on its face against interstate commerce or whether it has the purpose or effect of discriminating against interstate commerce. If the statute is discriminatory, the state has the burden to justify both the local benefits flowing from the statute and to show the state has no other means of advancing the legitimate local purpose.
Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court with regard to voting rights and, by extension, racial desegregation. It overturned the Texas state law that authorized parties to set their internal rules, including the use of white primaries. The court ruled that it was unconstitutional for the state to delegate its authority over elections to parties in order to allow discrimination to be practiced. This ruling affected all other states where the party used the white primary rule.
Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision with regard to aggravating factors in crimes. The Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial, incorporated against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibited judges from enhancing criminal sentences beyond statutory maxima based on facts other than those decided by the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. The decision has been a cornerstone in the modern resurgence in jury trial rights. As Justice Scalia noted in his concurring opinion, the jury-trial right "has never been efficient; but it has always been free."
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. is a leading United States civil rights organization and law firm based in New York City.
United States v. Washington, 384 F. Supp. 312, aff'd, 520 F.2d 676, commonly known as the Boldt Decision, was a legal case in 1974 heard in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The case re-affirmed the rights of American Indian tribes in the state of Washington to co-manage and continue to harvest salmon and other fish under the terms of various treaties with the U.S. government. The tribes ceded their land to the United States but reserved the right to fish as they always had. This included their traditional locations off the designated reservations.
Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475 (1954), was a landmark case, "the first and only Mexican-American civil-rights case heard and decided by the United States Supreme Court during the post-World War II period." In a unanimous ruling, the court held that Mexican Americans and all other nationality groups in the United States have equal protection under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The ruling was written by Chief Justice Earl Warren. This was the first case in which Mexican-American lawyers had appeared before the Supreme Court.
City of Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U.S. 617 (1978), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that states could not discriminate against another state's articles of commerce.
San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that San Antonio Independent School District's financing system, which was based on local property taxes, was not a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause.
White primaries were primary elections held in the Southern United States in which only white voters were permitted to participate. Statewide white primaries were established by the state Democratic Party units or by state legislatures in South Carolina (1896), Florida (1902), Mississippi and Alabama, Texas (1905), Louisiana and Arkansas (1906), and Georgia (1900). Since winning the Democratic primary in the South almost always meant winning the general election, barring black and other minority voters meant they were in essence disenfranchised. Southern states also passed laws and constitutions with provisions to raise barriers to voter registration, completing disenfranchisement from 1890 to 1908 in all states of the former Confederacy.
Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio, 490 U.S. 642 (1989), was a court case concerning employment discrimination, argued before the United States Supreme Court on January 18, 1989, and decided on June 5, 1989.
Southern Pacific Company v. Arizona, 325 U.S. 761 (1945), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Arizona Train Limit Law of 1912, which prohibited passenger trains with more than fourteen cars and prohibited freight trains with more than seventy cars, placed an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce. The Court held that the law imposed a burden far greater than necessary to achieve Arizona's legitimate interest in lowering the rate of train accidents. This case is part of the Court's so-called negative commerce clause jurisprudence.
Oregon Waste Systems, Inc. v. Department of Environmental Quality of Oregon, 511 U.S. 93 (1994), is a United States Supreme Court decision focused on the aspect of state power and the interpretation of the Commerce Clause as a limitation on states' regulatory power. In this particular case, the Supreme Court considered whether the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality's alleged cost-based surcharge on the disposal of out-of-state waste violated the dormant commerce clause.
Chemical Waste Management, Inc. v. Hunt, 504 U.S. 334 (1992), was a United States Supreme Court case that held that an Alabama law imposing a fee on out-of-state hazardous waste being disposed of in-state violated the Dormant Commerce Clause.
Missouri, Kansas, [sic] & Texas Railway Company of Texas v. Clay May, 194 U.S. 267 (1904), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court which held that a Texas law did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution by penalizing only railroad companies for allowing certain weeds to mature and go to seed on their land.
This is a timeline of voting rights in the United States. The timeline highlights milestones when groups of people in the United States gained voting rights, and also documents aspects of disenfranchisement in the country.
