September 3, 2015

POS 282 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN LAW
In class today, Thursday 9/3, we began by going over the current Maine statute regarding voter registration. We went over current proper statutory citation form, and also the current organization of the Maine court system. We discussed the lack of an explicit cause of action in the Sanders opinion, and got to the initial question that is addressed by the Court: what does the word "unreasonable" in the statute mean exactly? That's where we'll pick up next week. The assignment for Tuesday 9/8 is to reread Sanders. Going paragraph by paragraph, figure out, in simple words, what question is being addressed in each paragraph, and how the Court answers the question.

POS 384 CIVIL LIBERTIES
In class today, Thursday 9/3, we first went over the current status of Kim Davis (in contempt, apparently). We went over the parties, and why the plaintiffs' attorney may have wanted to include opposite sex couples as well as same-sex couples. We discussed the Cause of Action asserted by the Plaintiffs. We went over the requirements for a preliminary injunction, looking along the way at both the organization of the federal court system and the citation form for Court of Appeals decisions. We then went through the flow chart of what the court had to decide: having decided that the right to marry is a fundamental right, what is the consequence of that designation for the rest of the questions that the court must address. The assignment for Tuesday 9/8 is to re-read Miller v. Davis, focussing on the exact questions that the court addresses, and then the court's answers to those specific questions.