Constitutional Law
June 15, 2025
The plaintiffs in Moore in Moore v. United States (2024) are two United States business owners, Charles and Kathleen Moore, who had investments in an American-controlled foreign corporation known as KisanKraft. For eleven years, KisanKraft created a steady stream of income, but the income was not distributed to its American shareholders. Despite this, the Moores were taxed $14,729 for their non-realized income because of their share in KisanKraft. Responding to this tax, they brought a lawsuit against the US claiming that the Mandatory Repatriation Tax (MRT) violated the Direct Tax Clause of the United States Constitution.
June 15, 2025
In Grants Pass City v. Johnson (2024), the case aimed to resolve a conflict between the City of Grants Pass, Oregon and long-time Grants Pass residents—Gloria Johnson, Debrah Blake, and John Logan. Grants Pass City had implemented a series of ordinances that prohibited camping, and a violation of these ordinances often resulted in a minimum $295 fine. Consequently, if an individual is found to have violated multiple camping ordinances, it will then lead to exclusion orders—or bans from specific places like parks or other public spaces. Then, once an individual violates those exclusion orders, it would evolve into a criminal trespassing charge. Three Grants Pass residents brought a class action lawsuit and sued the city after Johnson was fined for sleeping in her van. At the time, Grants Pass had a high population of homeless residents resulting in them creating restrictions in order to keep homeless people from accessing public land, including anti-camping and anti-sleeping ordinances. These municipal laws further prohibited sleeping on public sidewalks, streets, and alleyways as well as camping on public property.
May 15, 2025
The California legislature set strict regulations that forbade the in-state sale of whole pork that comes from breeding pigs or their offspring if they are confined in a cruel manner. As defined in Proposition 12, the confinement of the animals is cruel if it limits the animal's movements to the extent that the animal cannot lay down, stand up, extend its limbs, or turn freely. As a result of Proposition 12, the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation filed a lawsuit on behalf of their pig farming members, arguing that Proposition 12 violates the Constitution because it burdens interstate commerce. Since California imports nearly all the pork it consumes, the cost of complying with Proposition 12 would be paid by California and out-of-state producers (National Pork Producers Council v. Ross 2023).
May 15, 2025
Under the Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA), the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has the power to observe fishing vessels to generate data for sustainability initiatives. Even though the MSA limits private funding of the observer programs in some fisheries, the MSA does not state who bears these costs in the Atlantic herring fishery. In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, a herring fisherman argued against an NWFS rule that required them to pay for at-sea observers. Both the D.C. and First Circuits courts applied Chevron deference and upheld the agency's construction of the statute.
April 15, 2025
Nancy Williams—along with 26 other unemployed residents of Alabama—filed a class action lawsuit against Alabama's Secretary of Labor. The plaintiffs claimed that Secretary Fitzgerald Washington unlawfully delayed the processing of the group's state unemployment claims under 42 U. S. C. §1983. They claimed this violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Social Security Act of 1935. Secretary Washington filed a motion to dismiss the complaint on the grounds that the state lacked jurisdiction and substantive claims. The Alabama Court of Civil Appeals denied the appeal. The Alabama Supreme Court granted dismissal of the suit on the grounds that the lower court lacked jurisdiction over the case because the plaintiffs had not yet exhausted mandatory administrative remedies.
April 15, 2025
TikTok—a social media platform and U.S. subsidiary owned by the Chinese company, ByteDance—has challenged Congress's recent legislation to combat Chinese influence in U.S. media and data sharing. Because ByteDance manages business in China, Congress demands ByteDance to sell TikTok to an approved buyer as a way to evade data collection and espionage. This is essentially a ban of the platform if the sale was not completed within the timeframe specified by Congress.
March 15, 2025
Throughout the 20th century, federal involvement in education has noticeably expanded to emphasise education in response to key historical moments like the launch of Sputnik in 1957 and President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty in the 1960s (U.S. Department of Education). Although the organization was initially created in 1867 to collect educational data, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) was established as a cabinet-level agency in 1979 to oversee federal education policy.
December 15, 2024
The Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022) removed the legal abortion rights established by Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). This change gave states the power to regulate abortion, leading to significant legal and political activity across the United States. State constitutions have become essential battlegrounds as legislatures, courts, and voters work to influence the future of reproductive rights.
November 15, 2024
'Parents Defending Education (PDE) v. Olentangy Local School District Board of Education (2024) addresses several Olentangy policies that are related to student expression. These policies are particularly on topics of gender identity, harassment, and discrimination. PDE is a national organization focused on parental rights in education.