Impact of the 14th Amendment on Local Litigation in Front of the Supreme Court

• In Event: Politics and Policy in American Federalism

Abstract

In this paper, we explore cases in the United States where municipalities (cities, towns, and villages) are involved in constitutional and policy conflicts and investigate how disputes are resolved through the judicial process. Using cases from the historic and modern Supreme Court Database, we trace the evolution and persistence of local government litigation from the Reconstruction period (1865) through the end of the Civil Rights period (1968). The Reconstruction period in the United States was a tumultuous time for the country and caused several shifts in the federal-state-local relationship. The enfranchisement of African Americans required substantial changes in local ordinances, obliged Southern (and Northern) states to create public school systems, changed local taxation schemes to be more equitable, and, most notably, outlawed racial discrimination in different forms. The impact of the due process clause of the 14th Amendment brought forth substantial changes to the scope of police powers used by local governments. As racial and economic justice issues emerged as a new area of litigation, the decisions issued by the Supreme Court also changed in response.

This paper represents a chapter in a forthcoming book and challenges how the constitutional system evolved in response to the introduction of government beyond the center and state. Our findings suggest that certain issue domains of litigation activity are much more significant than others during this period, namely in civil rights, civil liberties, and economic rights. The Reconstruction Era represents a distinct departure from the traditional dual-federal relationship as the federal government became more involved in ensuring that the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were implemented at the state and local levels. Indeed, legal scholars note the process of successive incorporation of the Bill of Rights through the interpretation of the Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment signaling a crucial shift in the expansion of claims to these rights (Garrett, 2019; Hamilton, 1938). Our results detail important implications for the evolution of federalism, intergovernmental relationships, and how governments closest to their citizens fit into the constitutional order from the Reconstruction to the end of the Civil Rights era.

Authors

• William Myers, University of Tampa

• Davia C. Downey, University of Memphis