Reversals of Court decisions by amendment
Reversals of court decisions by amendment refer to the constitutional process through which Congress can propose amendments to the U.S. Constitution in order to overturn Supreme Court rulings. According to Article V of the Constitution, such amendments can be proposed by a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress or by a convention called at the request of two-thirds of state legislatures. To become effective, these amendments must then be ratified by three-quarters of state legislatures or special conventions.
This process enables Congress to address and reverse judicial interpretations of constitutional issues, while legislative changes can address rulings related to federal statutes. Throughout U.S. history, several amendments have directly countered specific Supreme Court decisions. Notable examples include the Eleventh Amendment, which limited federal court jurisdiction over state lawsuits, and the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, which abolished slavery and granted citizenship rights, respectively. The Sixteenth Amendment allowed Congress to levy income taxes, overturning a previous court ruling, and the Twenty-sixth Amendment established voting rights for eighteen-year-olds, directly countering an earlier Supreme Court decision. This mechanism reflects the dynamic interplay between legislative power and judicial authority within the framework of American governance.
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Reversals of Court decisions by amendment
Description: Overturning of a Supreme Court ruling interpreting a provision of the Constitution by a constitutional amendment.
Significance: If Congress disagrees with the interpretation of the Constitution developed by the Court, it can propose an amendment that will have the effect of overturning the Court’s decision.
According to Article V of the U.S. Constitution, two-thirds majorities of both houses of Congress or a convention called by Congress at the request of two-thirds of state legislatures can propose an amendment to the Constitution. The amendment must be ratified by three-quarters of the states through their legislatures or special conventions. These amendments enable Congress to overturn a Supreme Court ruling involving a constitutional issue. In contrast, if Congress wishes to overturn a Court ruling interpreting a federal statute, it can do so simply by passing another law. Among the amendments successfully proposed by Congress, five the Eleventh, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Sixteenth, and Twenty-sixth can be interpreted as overturning Court rulings.
The Eleventh Amendment, ratified in 1795, overturned Chisholm v. Georgia (1793) by limiting the federal courts’ right to hear suits brought against states by citizens of other states. In Chisholm, the Court had allowed a citizen of South Carolina to sue the state of Georgia. Because a number of state governments were in default on their debts at the time, the states feared that the Chisholm case would make them vulnerable to a flood of lawsuits.
In Scott v. Sandford (1857), the Court denied Congress the power to outlaw slavery in any of the territories under federal jurisdiction and declared that no African American, free or slave, could ever be a citizen of the United States. This ruling was overturned by the Thirteenth Amendment (1865), which eliminated slavery, and the Fourteenth Amendment (1868), which conferred citizenship on every person born or naturalized in the United States.
The Sixteenth Amendment (1913) gave Congress the power to levy an income tax, overturning Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan and Trust Co. (1895), in which the Court had ruled such a tax unconstitutional. The Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971), by granting eighteen-year-olds the right to vote in elections at all levels, overturned the Court’s ruling in Oregon v. Mitchell (1970) that Congress could set age qualifications only for federal elections not for state and local elections.
Bibliography
Friendly, Fred, and Martha Elliott. The Constitution, That Delicate Balance. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984.
Hall, Kermit, William Wiecek, and Paul Finkelman. American Legal History: Cases and Materials. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.