Durability of Federal legislation protecting abortion rights in US Recently the Supreme Court of the United States, through Dobbs, has restored the right of States to prohibit abortion. Supporters of reproductive freedoms have since renewed calls upon Congress to enshrine these freedoms in federal law. Proponents of such calls on Congress seem to believe that the Supremacy Clause supports the power of Congress to limit the relevant rights of States, with the same effect as the long-standing ruling of Roe. However, such legislation, like all other, may be subjected to judicial review, unlike Roe, which was rather a product of judicial review. Given revelations through written opinion about the personal perspectives of the current justices, do States have a compelling chance of having such legislation overturned, for example by virtue of the Article 1 limitations on Congressional power or the Tenth Amendment protection of States' rights?
The Supremacy Clause makes Federal laws superior to state laws and even state constitutions, but that is only true for Constitutional federal laws. If Congress passed a law seeking to restore the effect of the now overruled Roe decision, there would be a question as to what provisions of the constitution empowered Congress to do so. Such a law might be challenged, and if no convincing source of congressional authority to pass such a law was cited, it could plausibly be overturned. One supposes that the members of the majority in Dobbs would be reluctant to see that decision superseded by a new Federal law. One hopes that they would take a principled stance, and only overturn such a law if there was good legal reason to do so. Without seeing the text of such a law, and the constitutional arguments for and against it, there is no legitimate way to judge if it would be within the power of Congress. As a political matter, I doubt that the current Congress will pass such a law.
The future prospects are negligible, and the present status of such influence is non-existent. In a few cases, you may find an appellate decision citing some statement from a reputable law review. Here is an article that addresses such influences on SCOTUS (which, the authors note, have decreased over time). However, you are describing a wingnut legal theory, and courts do not rely on wingnut legal theories, they rely on what the actual law is.
It's a bit of an oversimplification. You're correct that there is a federal law against murder, 18 USC 1111. However it applies only to a murder committed in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States. This covers situations like crimes committed on federal lands such as national parks or federal buildings, or crimes on US-flagged ships at sea, aircraft in flight, or in space. It does not apply to &quot;ordinary&quot; crimes committed at most locations within the US. 18 USC Chapter 51 covers a few other situations, such as murder of a federal officer, foreign diplomat, by incarcerated or escaped federal prisoners, US nationals murdering each other while abroad, and so forth. The idea is that these restrictions keep the laws within the enumerated powers of Congress as stated in Article I Section 8 of the US Constitution. A federal statute covering all murders throughout the US would probably be unconstitutional for this reason. So while what he says is not strictly correct, it is true that in the vast majority of cases, murders are covered by state laws and not by federal laws. Even if one was to agree with Ramaswamy that medical abortions are a form of murder, even still, no federal murder law currently on the books would apply to a typical abortion, except under very unusual circumstances.
Yes, legislative bodies can pass legislation that constrains the interpretation of the rest of their legislation. In the U.S., see 1 U.S.C §1-8. In Canada, see The Interpretation Act. In British Columbia, see The Interpretation Act. As an example of a back-and-forth between the courts and congress regarding a setting a standard of review, consider the passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Summarizing from Holt v. Hobbs 574 U. S. ____ (2015): In Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872 (1990), the Supreme Court held that "neutral, generally applicable laws that incidentally burden the exercise of religion usually do not violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment". Congress desired a stricter test that prohibited the burdening of religion regardless of whether the laws are neutral or generally applicable. Congress passed RFRA in 1993, which required that "[g]overnment shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, unless the government demonstrates that application of the burden to the person — (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest". RFRA was passed with the goal of setting the standard of review for all other legislation that burdens a person's exercise of religion. Without RFRA, the standard of review would have been that used in Smith, based solely on First Amendment protections. With RFRA, the standard of review became stronger, basically strict scrutiny. An example of Congress setting the factors to be used in a balancing test is the addition of fair use via the Copyright Act of 1976. Prior to 1976, courts had been applying a fair use exception based on common law rather than statute. The act encoded in statute the four factors that Congress wanted to be considered and listed several purposes for which fair use was explicitly applicable. In this case, Congress basically codified the fair use doctrine as it was being used at the time by the courts. It could be considered an expression of approval for the existing interpretation of the time and a desire to prevent drift in that analysis.
It would not prohibit Colorado from passing the law, but it could prohibit implementing the law. SCOTUS rulings (Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486; Term Limits, 514 U.S. 779) establish that neither Congress nor the States can require additional qualifications of federal candidates beyond those listed in the Constitution. The relevant question is whether a law imposes an additional &quot;qualification&quot; on a candidate for president. Every state imposes at least one requirement on a person seeking to be a candidate on the ballot in a state: they must somehow &quot;register&quot; as a candidate. So the Qualifications Clause is not interpreted to mean &quot;anybody can run for president as long as age and natural-born&quot;. The Anderson-Burdick doctrine allows certain kinds of requirements to be imposed on candidates, namely those that relate to a state's interest on properly managing elections. A no-felon law would clearly go way beyond the accepted state interest (regarding management of elections) reflected in Anderson-Burdick, and would be found to be as unconstitutional as requiring a candidate for president to have a law degree, or prohibiting a candidate from having a law degree.
The US Constitution doesn't say one way or the other how a state's representatives are to be chosen, so until this law was passed in 1841, a state could have all of their representatives elected at-large, without districts. It is only recently that SCOTUS has gotten involved in redistricting questions: here is a summary of leading redistricting rulings. A recurring theme in these rulings has been the Equal Protection Clause, where certain redistricting plans (or non-plans) were found to violate that clause (especially ordering a state to redistrict when it refused to do so with the result being that population changes diluted the vote of those living in certain districts). Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1 held that The constitutional requirement in Art. I, § 2,that Representatives be chosen &quot;by the People of the several States&quot; means that, as nearly as is practicable, one person's vote in a congressional election is to be worth as much as another's thus redistricting is a justiciable question, answerable with respect to the federal government's need to enforce the 14th Amendment. It is not necessary to amend the Constitution further to specify a means of enforcing that clause.
The amendment restricts when a change in law takes effect. The amendment does not restrict all laws, just those &quot;varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives&quot;. A law could be passed this session automatically increasing (or decreasing) congressional pay by 5% per annum, and could take effect after the 2022 elections have taken place in November. Like all constitutional amendments, we do not get an authoritative interpretation of the meaning of the words until someone sues someone else and SCOTUS says what it means. Shaffer v. Clinton, 54 F. Supp. 2d 1014 is a case almost on point, precisely over whether COLAs violate the 27th Amendment. The Executive branch (defendants) sought dismissal and certain Congressmen and citizens (plaintiffs) sought summary judgment, &quot;asserting there is no genuine issue as to any material fact remaining in dispute and plaintiffs are entitled to judgment as a matter of law&quot;. The case was dismissed with prejudice without much mention of the merits the annual COLAs provided by the Ethics Reform Act of 1989 are not independent laws under the Twenty-seventh Amendment and that Adjustments to congressional salaries under the Ethics Reform Act are not discretionary acts of Congress. The adjustments are calculations performed by nonlegislative administrative staff, following a specific formula provided by Congress in the Act This provides a good basis for thinking that a future court would reach the same &quot;failure to state a claim&quot; dead end, but in lieu of something above the level of U.S. District Court, Colorado would be necessary to make the conclusion &quot;a matter of settled law&quot;. What you propose does not require making more than one law, and then a bunch of administrative calculations that does not involve Congress.
It probably does, up to a point. Roe v. Wade asserts a right to privacy, discussed in §VIII. Granting that there is no explicit enumeration of a right to privacy in the Constitution, its implicit presence is discerned via a long series of constitutional rulings of a diverse nature. It is not clear what is the extent of This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people... However, even in the case of explicitly recognized rights, they are not absolute: you cannot commit fraud or threaten a person with death and escape punishment by citing the 1st Amendment, you cannot own a machine gun and cite the 2nd in your defense. Fundamental rights are strongly protected, but they may be limited in a fashion that survives strict scrutiny. This means that the encroachment is necessary to a "compelling state interest", it is "narrowly tailored" towards that end, and is the "least restrictive means" to achieve that end. The question arose in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11 where Jacobson was criminally arraigned for refusing to comply with a mandatory vaccination law (applicable to all persons over 21). The court noted that the liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States to every person within its jurisdiction does not import an absolute right in each person to be, at all times and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint. There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good. The liberty secured by the 14th Amendment, this court has said, consists, in part, in the right of a person 'to live and work where he will'...; and yet he may be compelled, by force if need be, against his will and without regard to his personal wishes or his pecuniary interests, or even his religious or political convictions, to take his place in the ranks of the army of his country, and risk the chance of being shot down in its defense... According to settled principles, the police power of a state must be held to embrace, at least, such reasonable regulations established directly by legislative enactment as will protect the public health and the public safety. The right to compel vaccination is reaffirmed in Zucht v. King, 260 U.S. 174. There is currently no mandatory vaccination law applicable to adults; were such a law to be created (analogous to the earlier Mass. law regarding smallpox vaccination), it could easily pass judicial review as long as it is "minimalist". The question of "compelling government interest" would distinguish between mandatory Ebola or zombie-fever vaccinations vs. shingles or (ordinary) flu. School-related vaccination laws are the most minimal way to achieve the desired outcome, so a law requiring everybody to submit might not pass a strict scrutiny review.