What authority (or authorities) have established the status of State ratifications of U.S. Constitutional amendments? Background In the United States, the NARA is the authority that receives all final documents related to the State ratification of a United States Constitutional amendment as implied on the NARA website: TITLE 1 -- GENERAL PROVISIONS CHAPTER 2 -- ACTS AND RESOLUTIONS; FORMALITIES OF ENACTMENT; REPEALS; SEALING OF INSTRUMENTS Sec. 106b. Amendments to Constitution Whenever official notice is received at the National Archives and Records Administration that any amendment proposed to the Constitution of the United States has been adopted, according to the provisions of the Constitution, the Archivist of the United States shall forthwith cause the amendment to be published, with his certificate, specifying the States by which the same may have been adopted, and that the same has become valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of the Constitution of the United States. In addition, the NARA has also received recession or rejections of certain Constitutional amendments from the states, the validity of which is not pronounced by the head archivist, but is seen as conclusive by another (unnamed) authority as stated here: In a few instances, States have sent official documents to NARA to record the rejection of an amendment or the rescission of a prior ratification. The Archivist does not make any substantive determinations as to the validity of State ratification actions, but it has been established that the Archivist's certification of the facial legal sufficiency of ratification documents is final and conclusive. Since the most credible source I found on the matter does not state who &quot;established&quot; that the legal sufficiency of ratification documents is final and conclusive, I wanted to ask the following question: Question What authority (or authorities) has established that the facial legal sufficiency of ratification documents is final and conclusive?
From what I read, it appears that the final quoted statement is not saying another authority does this so much as the Archivist does not do it. Which would mean that the when the state notifies the Archivist and says "We ratified the amendment" the Archivist accepts that the state did all required steps to ratify the amendment and doesn't need to tick a check box list of steps. Or to put anotherway, the lawful Ratification of a Constitutional Amendment in a State is determined by the state's own institutions and not the Federal Government's. Once the state says it's ratified, the Feds assume it was done so following the states own processes and was not done in an underhanded fashion.
The President has the power under Article II of the U.S. Constitution to faithfully execute the laws enacted by Congress. Any power that the President has to regulate international travel of non-U.S. citizens arises from statutes enacted by Congress that give the President (or the executive branch more generally) that authority. Immigration laws, in practice, give very substantial discretionary authority to the President, and public health laws probably also do so. I don't have chapter and verse to cite to you regarding which specific statutes provide that authority, without considerably more research, but that is the general idea. The primary statute regulating immigration is the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (and more generally, Title 8 of the United States Code). It is not uncommon in the United States for there to be disputes over how much discretion a President has under a particular statute in the United States, because unlike parliamentary systems of government, the execution of laws and the passage of law is split between different branches of the federal government in the Presidential system of the United States, rather than being fused with a Prime Minster who serves at the pleasure of the legislature.
Are there any underlying reasons behind the nonsensical structure of U.S.C. titles? Is it simply a case of "This is how it's been for awhile, don't fix what isn't broken." or is there more to it than that? First of all, the United States Code is generally not designed to be used by non-lawyers. Second, one of the main ways to research case law interpreting a statute is by doing a boolean search on the code section of that statute. Every time you change a title or section number, you impair the ability of people doing legal research (both judges and lawyers) to find previous case law interpreting the meaning of the statute. Third, you make it much harder to determine when the substance of the provision was originally enacted (e.g. if you want legislative history or to determine which of two conflicting statutory provisions was enacted first) since an annotated statute will often show when the current section was enacted but will not explain what it was derived from. Fourth, the location of a statute within the context of other statutory sections often informs its meaning. Machine gun may have one definition in two or three laws, and a different one in two or three other laws, and there may be yet other laws where machine gun is an undefined term. Moving a statutory section from one part of the code to another could influence the default definition that one uses for an undefined term changing substantive law. Fifth, usually a new codification will also involve some drafting standards, for example, to add gender neutrality or to avoid notoriously ambiguous constructions (like 250 word sentences). But, it isn't at all uncommon for very slight changes like the position of a comma or the formatting of a section with multiple indents, to result in a change of the likely meaning of a somewhat ambiguous statute and it is pretty much impossible to know a priori when a statutory section is ambiguous until you are confronted with a fact pattern that makes the ambiguity in that context clear. This isn't confined to obscure laws of little importance. For example, the question of whether Obamacare applied in states that hadn't set up their own exchanges hinged on these kinds of issues. None of this is to say that you should never recodify the statutes. But, a basically aesthetic motivation that mostly matters to people who make up a tiny portion of the main users of the product (non-lawyers) that poses multiple threats to how statutes will be located using legal research tools, and how it will be interpreted once located, means that reorganizing statutes is not something to be done lightly. In short, there are a lot of serious, substantive costs that can accompany a recodification of a law. As a result, re-codification is most often done only as part of an overall omnibus reform of an area of law on the merits where the interest in being able to track prior interpretive caselaw and determine the original meaning of a statute enacted long ago is at its lowest. Barring the even more ridiculous case of Congress repealing everything and passing the exact same laws again, just under different Titles/Chapters/etc, This is not so ridiculous. Most states have done exactly that one or two times in their history (sometimes more for older states). Also, many newly admitted to the union states also do something similar. For example, the basic template for the statutes in Colorado was the statutes of the state of Illinois. Basically, the first time around, somebody started with an Illinois statute book, eliminated Illinois specific laws and laws that they didn't like, rearranged them and adopted them as the original statutes of the State of Colorado (it may have actually been version 2.0 after a stopgap set of statutes, I don't recall which). Also, most states completely repeal and readopt all of their statutes in codified form on the recommendation of the codifier to a legislative committee, to reflect the acts passed in the previous session, every year. This doesn't involve overhauls really, but in principle is a complete repeal and reenactment. While the federal government has never overhauled the entire U.S. Code in this manner, it has been done at the level of individual titles of the U.S. Code. For example, the most recent major reorganization and overhaul of the structure of the Internal Revenue Code (Title 26) was in 1986. The copyright laws were overhauled in the late 1970s. Both of those accompanied major substantive changes in those areas of law. Another major recodification of many parts of the U.S. Code took place following 9-11 in connection with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which reorganized both the bureaucracy and the associated U.S. Code language associated with dozens of federal agencies. would it be possible for Congress to arbitrarily merge, combine, and delete Titles, and to rearrange the location of laws, definitions, etc? Are there laws/regulations governing this? Yes. Congress can do so any time it wants by passing a bill (it would be the longest bill ever - dozens of volumes long) doing so, and getting the President to sign it. The legislative process would be exactly the same as any other bill.
The document may, but probably doesn't say what it is you are witnessing. For example, a person witnessing a statutory declaration in NSW attests: their qualification to be a witness (JP, solicitor etc.) that they actually saw the declarant sign it that they asked the declarant if they believed their declaration was true that they have known the declarant for more than 12 months OR the declarant provided a photo ID and either their face matched the photo or they had a valid reason for not showing their face. If it doesn't say then what you are witnessing is that the signature was made by a person whom you could identify if necessary (e.g. if the person denied the signature).
National security letters can compel the production of some kinds of (non-&quot;content&quot;) user data, and (according to Wikipedia) typically contain a nondisclosure requirement forbidding the recipient of the letter from disclosing it. I assume that a witness has received and complied with a national security letter, and a non-government party wants to ask the witness questions which outside the courtroom, the witness would be forbidden to answer by the national security letter. The witness, or the government if represented in the lawsuit in question, may object to the questions. The purpose which justifies the secrecy requirements of a national security letter is also likely to justify the exercise of state secrets privilege. If the judge thinks a statute might otherwise be violated, they might intervene in the absence of any objection, or consider alternative remedies like an in camera hearing. If the court does not intervene to prevent the evidence being given, and the witness is charged with breaching the secrecy law, this would raise complex questions about the interpretation of the law imposing criminal penalties. The common law doctrine of absolute privilege for witnesses giving evidence in judicial proceedings applies in the United States, and could be raised in defence to any criminal charges.
From the holdings of May 14, 2018 in NJ. v. NCAA, As the Tenth Amendment confirms, all legislative power not conferred on Congress by the Constitution is reserved for the States. Absent from the list of conferred powers is the power to issue direct orders to the governments of the States. The federal law in question forbids legislatures from passing certain laws, but PASPA’s anti-authorization provision unequivocally dictates what a state legislature may and may not do. The distinction between compelling a State to enact legislation and prohibiting a State from enacting new laws is an empty one. The basic principle—that Congress cannot issue direct orders to state legislatures—applies in either event. The anti-authorization provision does not constitute a valid preemption provision. To preempt state law, it must satisfy two requirements. It must represent the exercise of a power conferred on Congress by the Constitution. And, since the Constitution “confers upon Congress the power to regulate individuals, not States,” New York, supra, at 177, it must be best read as one that regulates private actors. There is no way that the PASPA anti-authorization provision can be understood as a regulation of private actors. It does not confer any federal rights on private actors interested in conducting sports gambling operations or impose any federal restrictions on private actors. The Commerce Clause does not enter into the majority opinion, though in Thomas' concurring opinion, he indicates he is not entirely happy with purely in-state applications of the Commerce Clause. But, at present, interstate gambling does not differ.
Typically an Answer would have two parts. The first part presents the Defendant's side of the story raised in the Petition in an effort to assert that the Petition when viewed in light of the actual facts hasn't demonstrated a right to relief. The second part sets forth "affirmative defenses", most of which are procedural in nature. An affirmative defense raises some set of circumstances not discussed in the Petition that make it appropriate to deny relief even when, but for the defense, if everything in the Petition was true, this would suffice to establish grounds for relief. For example, procedural defenses might include: failure to meet a deadline, failure to give notice to the proper persons, failure to pay a filing fee, failure to include required information (such as a case number or a statement of facts or a signature) in the Petition, or lack of standing to file the Petition on behalf of the child because parental rights or legal guardianship are absent or because the person filing the Petition isn't an adult. The notion is that the Reply, in theory, should limit itself to responding to the newly raised procedural defenses stated in the Answer, or to new documents provided with the Answer, instead of trying to argue and resolve every dispute of fact or credibility issues between the Petition's version of the facts and the Answer's version of the facts. When in doubt, talk about it in the Reply. At worst, it is beyond the scope of what should be included in a Reply and can be ignored by the hearing officer as harmless. And, sometimes the hearing officer will decide that they want to know what is said even if it isn't strictly within the proper scope of a Reply. Certainly provide any documents that weren't previously provided that rebut the claims in the Answer.
Several examples come to mind. This may not be comprehensive. Attorney General's Opinions Ands The Equivalent In state and federal governments in the United States, there is typically an official in the Attorney General's office who reports directly to the Attorney General who writes Attorney General's opinions which are binding legal authority on the government officials in that state or in the federal government, as the case may be, on legal issues. One purpose for which an Attorney General's Opinion is frequently used is to declare that a law shall be considered unconstitutional for all purposes by government officials in that governmental body. Typically, this is only done when the precedents regarding a law's unconstitutionality are unequivocally clear, for example, because the U.S. Supreme Court or the state supreme court in the state in question, has declared a virtually identical law to be unconstitutional (e.g. a religious test to run for public office in a state constitution), even though a court has not ruled on this particular law and it remains on the books. County attorneys and city attorneys in their respective local governments often do the same thing. State and federal tax collection agencies often following the federal model of regulation like documents called &quot;Revenue Rulings&quot; and &quot;Revenue Procedures&quot; will sometimes make determinations that are binding on the government that are essentially identical in process and effect to an attorney-general's opinion, except that these are typically issued under the supervision of the top tax policy official in the tax collection agency, rather than by an official in the Attorney General's office. This is also sometimes done by administrative or independent agency boards in the course of carrying out their determinations. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency might determine, by regulation, that a &quot;right to farm&quot; law under a state statute or state constitution is unconstitutional to the extent that it interferences with its environmental regulation of farms. Prosecutorial Discretion Frequently prosecuting attorneys refrain from bringing charges under laws that they believe to be unconstitutional (at least in the circumstances that present themselves where the law could theoretically be used) as a matter of explicit or implicit policy. Even when a policy is explicit, however, it is often an internal policy not disclosed to the general public. And, since prosecutors routinely exercise prosecutorial discretion for all manner of reasons, it isn't easy to identify cases where a failure to bring a particular charge is a result of a determination by a prosecuting attorney that a law is unconstitutional, at least as applied in the circumstances of a particular case. Real Estate Title Standards A somewhat similar practice is found in real estate title work, most often in cases involving racially restrictive real estate covenants. Often there is a statute, regulation, or simply an industry standard privately adopted title standard that title companies trying to determine the state of title to real property use to disregard racially restrictive real estate covenants (and certain other less well known title issues) on the grounds that they are unconstitutional. This is done notwithstanding the general common law rule that duly executed and recorded real estate covenants are binding and run with the land. Mass Implementation Of Retroactive Precedents In rare circumstances, when a once widely used legal practice is determined to be unconstitutional and to have retroactive effect, such as convictions of crimes by non-unanimous juries in the State of Oregon, an ad hoc administrative process is established to identify and summarily invalidate the unconstitutional convictions or judgments, without litigating those cases in the courts on a case by case basis. Legislative Determinations and the Veto Power A legislative body will often repeal or amend a law for the reason that the law in question is believed to be unconstitutional, even if the constitutionality of this particular law has not been adjudicated in a court. In theory, this is a way in which a legislative body deems an existing law unconstitutional. In practice, however, different legislators will justify the repeal or amendment of an existing law for different purposes and there is no obvious way for someone not familiar with the legislative history of an act and the related deliberations to know if a law was repealed or amended because it was unconstitutional. Similarly, sometimes a President or Governor vetos legislation for the reason that this politician believes that a bill passed by the legislature is unconstitutional. But there is generally no definitive way to determine which vetos are for this reason and which vetos are for some other reason. Pre-Litigation Advisory Opinions The federal courts are not allowed to issue advisory opinions in the absence of a genuine case or controversy as a rules of the jurisdictional limits on their authority under Article III of the United States Constitution. But some states grant either the state supreme court, or a special committee or council, the authority to review newly enacted statutes, and/or proposed ballot initiative, to determine if they are unconstitutional on their face, before they take effect. In many civil law countries outside the United States, a constitutional court, or a &quot;council of state&quot; has similar authority. Military Law Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) in the United States, disobeying a lawful order is a ground to impose military justice penalties, but court-martial or otherwise. Implicit in the provision of the UCMJ, is the right and obligation of people subject to this provision of the UCMJ (basically active duty military personnel), to exercise independent judgment to disobey an unlawful order. One form of unlawful order is a military order to do something unconstitutional. So, in the first instance, a soldier given an order must evaluate whether or not the order which has the force of law as to them, is unconstitutional, and secondarily, this is raised as a defense before the appropriate military justice body (e.g. a court martial) to a prosecution seeking to discipline the soldier for disobeying an order under the UMCJ. To the extent that raising a defense in a court martial is equivalent to raising a defense in a court proceeding, that really isn't any different than ordinary judicial review. But, when a soldier refuses to follow an order on the grounds that the order is unconstitutional, this amounts to an invalidation of the order on constitutional grounds by a means other than judicial review. Constitutional Amendments The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution specifically held that all laws adopted by the Confederate government during the U.S. Civil War issuing public debts were void as a matter of law. Similarly, the adoption of various other constitutional amendments, such as the 13th Amendment prohibiting slavery, upon adoption, immediately caused all laws authorizing and regulating the institution of slavery in the United States to become unconstitutional. Prohibition and the abolition of poll taxes provide other examples of existing laws being determined to be unconstitutional immediately, when constitutional amendments take effect. Non-Court Precedents Specific historical acts and courses of dealing are often treated as determinations that different kinds of conduct are, or are not, constitutional. For example, the U.S. Civil War was taken as a non-court precedent establishing that a U.S. state does not have a right to unilaterally secede from the United States of America, even before a court reached that determination. This likewise implicitly resulted in the conclusion that all confederate laws were unconstitutional. Many examples of this involve separation of powers provisions of the constitution and provisions adjudicating the internal affairs of legislative bodies. The former are rarely litigated so custom, practice, and political pronouncements have to suffice instead. The latter are often expressly non-justiciable (i.e. beyond the jurisdiction of the courts) so determinations of when legislative procedures are constitutional or not are often vested in the discretion of the legislative bodies themselves. Most constitutional questions related to electoral college results, Congressional elections, and the constitutional amendment process are non-justiciable and are therefore resolved by legislators rather than judges.