November 30, 2016

POS 383 CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
In class today, Wednesday 11/30, I distributed two handouts: Assignment #2 (reproduced below) and two newspaper articles about the subject of the assignment, a proposal to have all Muslims in the country register with the federal government. I went over the assignment. We then started in on the cases for today. We discussed the Prize cases, Milligan, Quirin, Korematsu, Youngstown, Dames & Moore, and Zivotofsky. We will begin next week, with Hamdi and the cases that follow it, previously assigned. The assignment for Wednesday 12/7, is to begin working on your Assignment, and to read in addition pp. 270-289 of the text.

Assignment due at the beginning of the Exam on Friday, December 16, 2016

Congratulations! President-elect Trump has summoned you to Trump Tower, and offered you the position of Constitutional Analyst. This newly-created position analyzes Trump’s ideas to determine if they’re in accord with the Supreme Court’s idea of what’s constitutional.

Your first assignment is to do an analysis of the constitutionality of a possible plan by Trump to have all Muslims in America, citizen and non-citizen, immigrant and native-born alike, register with the federal government. (See the news articles on the subject also distributed today.)

But the plan is not popular with Congress, which has gotten a lot of negative feedback from the voters. It’s possible that Congress will pass a law forbidding such a registry (which law Congress could uphold over the President’s veto).

Trump believes that the President has the power to implement the plan, regardless of Congressional objections, because the President has full authority in this area of immigration and war-making powers. Trump says that we are engaged in The War on Terror, a war authorized by Congress, and that he has the right to use his wartime powers to fight terrorism, and this registry is an important tool in that fight.

Analyze whether Trump would be correct about the constitutional powers of the Executive. Include in your analysis both a situation in which Congress explicitly approves and authorizes the registry, and the situation in which Congress explicitly rejects the registry. Examine the arguments both for and against the constitutionality of the registry.

Use the following authority from the textbook: pp. 263-267; 289-340; and Arizona v. U.S. pp. 407-414. Use no other cases, and do no outside research. This assignment is totally based on what’s in the textbook.

To cite authority, use the textbook page numbers: e.g. “As the Court majority stated in Arizona v. U.S., ‘aliens are required to register with the Federal Government’. (Arizona at p. 409).”

The assignment will be graded on both the structure and the content of your analysis. The paper will also be graded on how well you write English, and how clearly you organize your thoughts. I like short clear sentences better than long complicated ones. I like correct grammar.

Please make two copies of your paper, one to hand in at the beginning of class, and the other for you to have during class for our discussion. I would expect the paper to be in the neighborhood of three pages long.

You may e-mail me if you have specific questions about the assignment. The more time that I have to answer your questions, the more likely it is that I can be helpful.

The assignment is due at the beginning of the exam on Friday 12/16. If you cannot be in class on that day, you should still e-mail me your assignment by the beginning of the exam time. If you do that, you will not have any grade deducted from your grade for the outline. If you do not, you should still contact me as soon as possible to see what options are available to you. See the Syllabus for the class rules regarding late papers.

The work should be entirely your own, with no collaboration or plagiarism. Do not show your paper to anyone. Do not look at anyone else’s paper. See the syllabus regarding plagiarism and collaboration.


IMPORTANT: If you e-mail your assignment to me, I will reply to confirm that I have received your assignment. If you do not get a reply, then I have not received the assignment.