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Pledge Protection Act
The Pledge Protection Act is proposed legislation in the United States Congress that seeks to deprive all Federal courts, including the Supreme Court, of jurisdiction to hear constitutional challenges to the Pledge of Allegiance or its recitation. The bill was first introduced in response to a constitutional challenge to the Pledge by atheist Michael Newdow. ''Newdow v. Elk Grove'' On June 21, 2000, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California ruled the Pledge of Allegiance constitutional in the case of '' Newdow v. Elk Grove Unified School District''. Michael Newdow, a prominent atheist who filed suit on behalf of his daughter, promised to appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The first decision of the Ninth Circuit was handed down on June 26, 2002, declaring that the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance violated the Establishment Clause. The 'Pledge Protection Act' would be introduced into the House of Representatives for the first time ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Senators and representatives are chosen through direct election, though vacancies in the Senate may be filled by a governor's appointment. Congress has 535 voting members: 100 senators and 435 representatives. The U.S. vice president has a vote in the Senate only when senators are evenly divided. The House of Representatives has six non-voting members. The sitting of a Congress is for a two-year term, at present, beginning every other January. Elections are held every even-numbered year on Election Day. The members of the House of Representatives are elected for the two-year term of a Congress. The Reapportionment Act of 1929 establishes that there be 435 representatives and the Uniform Congressional Redistricting Act requires ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
District Of Columbia Court Of Appeals
The District of Columbia Court of Appeals is the highest court of the District of Columbia, in the United States. Established in 1970, it is equivalent to a state supreme court, except that its authority is derived from the United States Congress rather than from the inherent sovereignty of the states. The court is located in the former District of Columbia City Hall building at Judiciary Square. The D.C. Court of Appeals should not be confused with the District's federal appellate court, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The D.C. Court of Appeals and the Superior Court of the District of Columbia comprise the District's local court system. History For much of the history of the District of Columbia, appeals in local matters were adjudicated by federal courts: first the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia (1801–1863), then the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia (1863–1893) (later renamed the U.S. District Court for the D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West Virginia V
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance languages (''ouest'' in French, ''oest'' in Catalan, ''ovest'' in Italian, ''oeste'' in Spanish and Portuguese). As in other languages, the word formation stems from the fact that west is the direction of the setting sun in the evening: 'west' derives from the Indo-European root ''*wes'' reduced from ''*wes-pero'' 'evening, night', cognate with Ancient Greek ἕσπερος hesperos 'evening; evening star; western' and Latin vesper 'evening; west'. Examples of the same formation in other languages include Latin occidens 'west' from occidō 'to go down, to set' and Hebrew מַעֲרָב maarav 'west' from עֶרֶב erev 'evening'. Navigation To go west using a compass for navigation (in a place where magnetic north is the same dire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Brownstein
Alan E. Brownstein (born 1947) is Professor of Law and the Boochever and Bird Chair for the Study and Teaching of Freedom and Equality at the UC Davis School of Law (King Hall). Before becoming a professor, he clerked for Judge Frank M. Coffin of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Professor Brownstein is well known for his scholarship on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. He has frequently commented on the intersection of religion and civil liberties with regard to marriage equality and Proposition 8. He serves on the legal committee of the ACLU of Northern California. He received a B.A. in Political Science and Psychology from Antioch College in 1969 and a J.D. from Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ... in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vikram Amar
Vikram David Amar (born 1963) is an American legal scholar focusing on constitutional law, federal courts, and civil and criminal procedure. In August 2015, he became dean of the University of Illinois College of Law and the Iwan Foundation Professor of Law. He was the first American-born person of Indian descent to serve as a dean of a major American law school. Career Prior to his arrival at Illinois Law, Amar was professor and senior associate dean for academic affairs at the UC Davis School of Law (King Hall). Before becoming a professor, he clerked for Judge William Albert Norris of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for Justice Harry Blackmun at the U.S. Supreme Court (where he appears to be the first person of South Asian heritage to have clerked). After serving as a clerk, Amar worked in the Sacramento office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, then began his career in legal academia in 1993 at King Hall. He joined the UC Hastings faculty in 1998, before r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Americans United For Separation Of Church And State
Americans United for Separation of Church and State (Americans United or AU for short) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that advocates for the disassociation of religion and religious organizations from government. The separation of church and state in the United States is often accepted to be provided in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." AU has been labeled "liberal" by the Associated Press (AP). Organization Americans United describes itself as officially non-sectarian and non-partisan. According to ''The Praeger Handbook of Religion and Education in the United States'' "It includes members from a broad religious, and non-religious, spectrum, including Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and atheists." Its national headquarters are in Washington, D.C. Its former executive director, Barry W. Lynn, is an ordained minister in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". The ACLU works through litigation and lobbying, and has over 1,800,000 members as of July 2018, with an annual budget of over $300 million. Affiliates of the ACLU are active in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The ACLU provides legal assistance in cases where it considers civil liberties to be at risk. Legal support from the ACLU can take the form of direct legal representation or preparation of '' amicus curiae'' briefs expressing legal arguments when another law firm is already providing representation. In addition to representing persons and organizations in lawsuits, the ACLU lobbies for policy positions that have been established by its board of directors. Current positions of the ACLU include opposing the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marci Hamilton
Marci Ann Hamilton (born July 22, 1957) is the chief executive officer and academic director at Child USA, an interdisciplinary think tank to prevent child abuse and neglect. She is also a scholar of constitutional law and a Fox Family Pavilion Distinguished Scholar in the Fox Leadership Program at the University of Pennsylvania. She is an expert on and advocate for the enforcement of the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution. Hamilton promotes adequate protection for minors, individuals and landowners who suffer as a result of actions which are claimed to be constitutionally protected on religious grounds. Hamilton is critical of provisions within Federal and State Religious Freedom Restoration Acts. Background and ideas Hamilton received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Vanderbilt University in 1979. She then earned a master's degree at Pennsylvania State University and a juris doctor from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she was editor-in-chief ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Claire McCaskill
Claire Conner McCaskill (; born July 24, 1953) is an American politician who served as a United States Senator from Missouri from 2007 to 2019 and as State Auditor of Missouri from 1999 to 2007. McCaskill is a native of Rolla, Missouri. She graduated from the University of Missouri and the University of Missouri School of Law. A member of the Democratic Party, McCaskill served as a member of the Missouri House of Representatives from 1983 to 1989, as Jackson County Prosecutor from 1993 to 1998, and as the 34th State Auditor of Missouri from 1999 to 2007. She ran for Governor of Missouri in the 2004 election, defeating Democratic incumbent Bob Holden in the Democratic primary and losing to Republican Matt Blunt in a close general election. McCaskill was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006. While the second female senator to have represented Missouri, she is the first female candidate to actually have been elected to the Senate from Missouri. (Jean Carnahan was appointed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
110th Congress
The 110th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, between January 3, 2007, and January 3, 2009, during the last two years of the Presidency of George W. Bush. It was composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The apportionment of seats in the House was based on the 2000 U.S. Census. The Democratic Party won a majority in both chambers, giving them full control of Congress for the first time since the 103rd Congress in 1993, which was also the previous time they controlled the House. Officially in the Senate, there were 49 Democrats, 49 Republicans, and two independents, but because both of the independents caucused with the Democrats, this gave the Democrats an operational majority. No Democratic-held seats had fallen to the Republican Party in the 2006 elections. This is the most recent Congress to feature a Republican Senators from Minnesota (Norm Coleman), New Mexico ( Pete Domenici) and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Senate Committee On The Judiciary
The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, informally the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of 22 U.S. senators whose role is to oversee the Department of Justice (DOJ), consider executive and judicial nominations, as well as review pending legislation. In addition, the Standing Rules of the Senate confer jurisdiction to the Senate Judiciary Committee in certain areas, such as considering proposed constitutional amendments and legislation related to federal criminal law, human rights law, immigration, intellectual property, antitrust law, and internet privacy. History Established in 1816 as one of the original standing committees in the United States Senate, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary is one of the oldest and most influential committees in Congress. Its broad legislative jurisdiction has assured its primary role as a forum for the public discussion of social and constitutional issues. The committee is also responsible for oversight of k ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jon Kyl
Jon Llewellyn Kyl ( ; born April 25, 1942) is an American politician and lobbyist who served as a United States Senator for Arizona from 1995 to 2013 and again in 2018. A Republican, he held both of Arizona's Senate seats at different times, serving alongside John McCain during his first stint. Kyl was Senate Minority Whip from 2007 until 2013. He first joined the lobbying firm Covington & Burling after retiring in 2013, then rejoined in 2019. The son of U.S. Representative John Henry Kyl and Arlene (née Griffith) Kyl, Kyl was born and raised in Nebraska and lived for some time in Iowa. He received his bachelor's degree and law degree from the University of Arizona. He worked in Phoenix, Arizona as an attorney and lobbyist before winning election to the United States House of Representatives, where he served from 1987 to 1995. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1994 and continued to be re-elected by comfortable margins until his retirement in January 2013. In 2006, he was re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
