Flast v Cohen & Hollingsworth v Perry PDF

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Flast v Cohen & Hollingsworth v Perry summary...

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Flast v Cohen 1965  Lyndon B Johnson War of poverty, passed Elementary and Secondary Education act o Guaranteed equal access to education for school age children by providing federal grants from taxpayers o Religious schools got these grants as well , people didn’t like it and brought suite to stop Cohen  Flast v Cohen  Taxpayers argued act violated establishment and free exercise clauses of the first amendment o Establishment clause  The establishment clause prohibits the federal government from supporting the establishment of any religion o Free exercise clause  Prohibits the federal government from hindering the exercise of religion  Taxpayers claim that the Elementary and Secondary Education Act o Supported the establishment of a religion o Hinder the free exercise of religion  Federals said the taxpayers do not have standing to challenge the act o A party has standing when a personal stake in the outcome of the case  Feds dismissed the case saying they had to gain standing the taxpayers had to o Have a concrete injury o Caused by the defendant  And that a favorable decision by a jury would remedy that injury  District court examined Supreme court decision in Frothingham v. Mellon o Where a taxpayer challenged the federal funding statute as unconstitutional but said their lack of significant income made the injury insignificant which caused them not to have standing  Taxpayers appealed to the Supreme court  THE ISSUE o Can a federal taxpayer have standing based solely on taxpayer status?  Chief Justice Warren stated that taxpayers had standing on the act o Stating a taxpayer has standing when the taxpayer has a personal stake when Congress abuse its power under the Taxing and Spending Clause  Warrant initiated a two-party test to test if a tax payer has stake: The Taxpayer Standing Test o The law must result from Congress’s taxing and spending power o The law must exceed a specific constitutional limitation on the taxing and spending power  Based on this test the courts reversed the lower court’s decision Hollingsworth v Perry 

Involved Constitutionality of Proposition 8

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o State ballot initiative and the California voters voted to amend the California Constitution to define marriage as only between a man and woman o This was in opposition to a California ruling months early that ruled that the California law that only marriage between man and woman violated the constitution Hollingsworth v Perry o Several same-sex couples challenge the constitutionality of Proposition 8 in federal court saying that it violated guarantees of liberty and equal protection o District court granted and indiction which granted an appeal to the Supreme court Supreme court ruled that once a case has been granted to have the right to same-sex couples to marry, that depriving that same privilege from everybody else violated the constitution o Attorney General denied to defend Proposition 8 recognizing significant constitutional problems Regular people came to defend the case instead o Court of appeals however saw the constitutional problems as they saw they could not only grant them civil unions and not the benefits of marriage  (Illinois 2 years before allowed same sex couples into Civil unions)  This creates an equal protection problem to a loss of the unions but not same-sex marriage o These unions would pose a constitutional problem...