Book Description

Emanuel® Law Outlines for Constitutional Law, Forty-First Edition, by Steve Emanuel focuses on those topics that are important in today’s Constitutional Law courses and includes an abundance of short-answer questions and answers as well as exam tips. New to the Forty-First Edition: Coverage of key 2022-2023 Supreme Court developments, including: Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, holding that universities may no longer take race into account in making admissions decisions and thus nullifying traditional affirmative action in admissions. Biden v. Nebraska, a separation-of-powers decision holding that the Biden administration’s cancellation of up to $400 billion of student loan debt was invalid under the “major question” doctrine. Under that doctrine, a federal agency may act on a major question of economic or political significance only if there is “clear direction” from Congress allowing that action. Nat’l Pork Producers Council v. Ross, a decision reaffirming that even where a state law was not enacted with an intent to discriminate against interstate commerce, the Court will still perform a rough balancing test, under which it will find a dormant Commerce Clause violation if the burden imposed on commerce is clearly excessive compared with the local benefits. Counterman v. Colorado, a free-speech case reaffirming that threats of violence are not protected by the First Amendment but holding that to treat the making of such a threat as a crime, the prosecution must prove that the speaker acted “recklessly,” i.e., that the speaker “consciously disregarded” a substantial risk that the speech would cause harm to another. Moore v. Harper, a decision about the meaning of the “Elections Clause,” which gives each state legislature the power to determine the “times, places and manner” of congressional elections. The Court rejected the “independent state legislature” theory, which contended that a state legislature’s power to regulate federal elections was absolute. The Capsule Summary provides a quick reference summary of the key concepts covered in the full Outline. The detailed course Outline with black letter principles supplements your casebook reading throughout the semester and gives structure to your own outline. The Quiz Yourself feature includes a series of short-answer questions and sample answers to help you test your knowledge of the chapter’s content. Exam Tips alert you to issues and commonly used fact patterns found on exams. The Casebook Correlation Chart correlates each section in the Outline with the pages covering that topic in the major casebooks.