The Rodriguez Courts Method for Determining Fundamental Interests

1
The Rodriguez Courts Method for Determining
Fundamental Interests

• the key to discovering whether education is
  fundamental is not to be found in comparisons
  of the relative societal significance of
  education as opposed to subsistence or housing.
  Nor is it to be found by weighing whether
  education is as important as the right to travel.
  Rather, the answer lies in assessing whether
  there is a right to education explicitly or
  implicitly guaranteed by the Constitution.
  (p.489)
• What does it mean to say that something is
  implicitly protected in the Constitution? Is
  voting? Is procreation?

2
Postscript to Rodriguez

• The Texas Supreme Court struck down the Texas
  funding scheme challenged in Rodriguez under the
  Texas State Constitutions guarantee of an
  efficient system of free public schools.

3
Plyler v. Doe What Does it Add to Our
Understanding of Fundamental Interests?

• Why does the Court strike down Texas denial of
  public education to undocumented children?
• Is education a fundamental interest after all?
• Is this a triumph of Marshalls sliding scale
  approach?

4
The Right to Travel as a Fundamental Interest

• Shapiro v. Thompson (1969) striking down state 1
  year residency requirement to receive public
  assistance on equal protection grounds, alluding
  to a right of interstate travel as part of
  constitutional concepts of personal liberty
• Court also cites privileges and immunities
  clauses in Art. IV and 14th Amendment and the
  Commerce clause as potential sources of a right
  to interstate travel
• The Court saw the purpose of the residency
  requirement as deterring the in-state migration
  of poor people, invalid under strict scrutiny

5
Regrounding the Right to Travel Under the
Privileges/Immunities Clause (?)

• Saenz v. Roe (1999) striking down state
  limitation on public assistance based on length
  of residency
• Court invokes 14th Amendment citizenship and
  privileges and immunities clauses, rather than
  equal protection
• The ruling still endorses an equal treatment
  principle, that states must not discriminate
  against recent citizens with respect to public
  assistance
• (but can with respect to portable benefits like
  divorce or college education)
• a distancing from EPC Fundamental interest
  analysis?

6
Introduction to Constitutional Limits on the
Structure of our Government The Federal/State
Balance of Power

• Three big issues
• (1) limits on national govt. powers
• Congress enumerated powers (Art. I)
• (2) relationship of federal power and state power
• States retain all powers not given to federal
  govt. (10th A)
• (3) Federalism-based limits on state power
• Dormant commerce clause

7
McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)

• 2 issues
• (1) Does Congress have the power to create a
  national bank?
• (2) Does Maryland have the power to tax the Bank
  of the U.S.?

8
Scope of Congressional Power

• First issue How does the Court decide this?
  What sources of constitutional decisionmaking
  does the Court use?
• we must never forget it is a Constitution we are
  expounding. What does that mean??
• What test does the Court apply for deciding
  whether an Act of Congress is within an
  enumerated power?
• Why does the Bank meet this test?
• What wouldnt pass this test? Can Congress pass a
  national speed limit to effectuate the postal
  power?