Coleman v. Miller
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''Coleman v. Miller'', 307 U.S. 433 (1939), is a landmark decision of the
United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
which clarified that if the Congress of the United States—when proposing for ratification an amendment to the
United States Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the Supremacy Clause, supreme law of the United States, United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven ar ...
, pursuant to Article V thereof—chooses ''not'' to set a deadline by which the
state legislatures A state legislature is a legislative branch or body of a political subdivision in a federal system. Two federations literally use the term "state legislature": * The legislative branches of each of the fifty state governments of the United Stat ...
of three-fourths of the states or, if prescribed by Congress
state ratifying conventions State ratifying conventions are one of the two methods established by Article V of the United States Constitution for '' ratifying'' proposed constitutional amendments. The only amendment that has been ratified through this method thus far is th ...
in three-fourths of the states, must act upon the proposed amendment, then the proposed amendment remains pending business before the state legislatures (or ratifying conventions). The case centered on the
Child Labor Amendment The Child Labor Amendment is a proposed and still-pending amendment to the United States Constitution that would specifically authorize Congress to regulate "labor of persons under eighteen years of age". The amendment was proposed on June 2, 1 ...
, which was proposed for ratification by Congress in 1924.


Background

The practice of limiting the time available to the states to ratify proposed amendments began in 1917 with the Eighteenth Amendment. All amendments proposed since then, with the exception of the Nineteenth Amendment and the Child Labor Amendment, have included a deadline, either in the body of the proposed amendment, or in the joint resolution transmitting it to the states. In its decision the Court concluded that Congress was quite aware in 1924 that—had it desired to do so—it could have imposed a deadline upon the Child Labor Amendment and Congress simply chose not to.


Decision

According to ''Coleman'', it is none other than the Congress itself—if and when the Congress should later be presented with valid ratifications from the required number of states—which has the discretion to arbitrate the question of whether too much time has elapsed between Congress' initial proposal of that amendment and the most recent state ratification thereof assuming that, as a consequence of that most recent ratification, the legislatures of (or conventions conducted within) at least three-fourths of the states have ratified that amendment at one time or another. The ''Coleman'' ruling—which modified the high Court's earlier 1921 dictum in '' Dillon v. Gloss''—held that the question of timeliness of ratification is a political and non-justiciable one, leaving the issue to the discretion of Congress. Thus it would appear that the length of time elapsing between proposal and ratification is irrelevant to the validity of the amendment. Based upon the Court's reasoning in ''Coleman'', the
Archivist of the United States The Archivist of the United States is the head and chief administrator of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) of the United States. The Archivist is responsible for the supervision and direction of the National Archives. The ...
proclaimed the Twenty-seventh Amendment as having been ratified when it surpassed the "three fourths of the several states" threshold for becoming a part of the Constitution. Declared ratified on May 7, 1992, it had been submitted to the states for ratification on September 25, 1789, an unprecedented time period of .


Impact

The ''Coleman'' decision has been described as reinforcing the
political question doctrine In United States constitutional law, the political question doctrine holds that a constitutional dispute that requires knowledge of a non-legal character or the use of techniques not suitable for a court or explicitly assigned by the Constitution ...
which is sometimes espoused by Federal courts in cases wherein the court deems the matter at hand to be properly assigned to the discretion of the legislative branch of the Federal government. In light of the precedent established by this case, three proposed constitutional amendments, in addition to the Child Labor Amendment, are considered to be still pending before the state legislatures (the
Congressional Apportionment Amendment The Congressional Apportionment Amendment (originally titled Article the First) is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution that addresses the number of seats in the House of Representatives. It was proposed by Congress on September ...
since 1789; the
Titles of Nobility Amendment The Titles of Nobility Amendment is a proposed and still-pending amendment to the United States Constitution. The 11th Congress passed it on May 1, 1810, and submitted to the state legislatures for ratification. It would strip United States ci ...
since 1810; and the
Corwin Amendment The Corwin Amendment was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution that was never adopted. It would shield "domestic institutions" of the states from the federal constitutional amendment process and from abolition or interference by ...
since 1861), as Congress did not specify a ratification deadline when proposing them to the states.


See also

*
List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 307 This is a list of cases reported in volume 307 of ''United States Reports'', decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1939. Justices of the Supreme Court at the time of volume 307 U.S. The Supreme Court is established by A ...


References


External links

* * {{caselaw source , case = ''Coleman v. Miller'', {{ussc, 307, 433, 1939, el=no , justia =https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/307/433/ , loc =http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/usrep/usrep307/usrep307433/usrep307433.pdf United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Hughes Court United States Constitution Article Five case law United States political question doctrine case law 1939 in United States case law