In the end, Mr. Byrd said, he concluded the amendment did not fit the confines of the Constitution and would serve to debase it, just as the constitutional amendment on Prohibition had, before it was was repealed.
Although almost every law passes that highly deferential standard, Justice Kennedy concluded that Amendment 2 did not.
We must conclude that Amendment 2 classifies homosexuals not to further a proper legislative end but to make them unequal to everyone else.
Because a bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot constitute a legitimate government interest, Kennedy concluded that Amendment 2 violated the Equal Protection Clause.
Frederick III, present at the negotiations as crown prince, assured the Habsburgs of the continuation of the alliance once he was in power, and secretly concluded an amendment to return Schwiebus to the Habsburgs, which he eventually did in 1694.
Yet Wasserman Schultz's remarks are puzzling because Convention Chairman Antonio R. Villaraigosa had to ask three times for "aye" votes before concluding that the amendment had a two-thirds majority.
In a 5 to 4 decision, the majority cast its ruling as a spirited defense of the First Amendment, concluding that corporations have the same rights as individuals when it comes to political speech.
In Virginia, in a written statement issued minutes before the House of Delegates was to debate the bill on Wednesday afternoon, Mr. McDonnell said that after discussion with doctors, lawyers and legislators, he had concluded that amendments were needed.
The CBO concluded that amendments made Wednesday would still leave 24 million Americans uninsured by 2024.
As TPM explains, it will be interesting to see how Scalia squares that posture with this decision he wrote in 1990: In 1990, Scalia wrote the majority opinion in Employment Division v. Smith, concluding that the First Amendment "does not require" the government to grant "religious exemptions" from generally applicable laws or civic obligations.
Concluding remarks The Kirkwood Amendment will not solve all problems.
