Abortion Laws and the Establishment Clause

A defining principle of the United States is the separation between church and state.

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Adolescent Family Life Act

In 1981, Congress enacted the Adolescent Family Life Demonstration Grants Act (AFLA) in response to the severe social and economic consequences that often follow pregnancy and childbirth among unmarried adolescents.

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Alien and Sedition Acts (1798)

Sedition may be defined as any illegal action tending to cause the disruption or overthrow of the government.

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American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978

Congress announced that the policy of the United States was to ‘‘protect and preserve’’ the rights of American Indians, Alaskan Natives, and Native Hawaiians ‘‘to believe, express, and exercise’’ their ‘‘traditional religions’’ in a joint resolution adopted in 1978, now known as the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA).

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Anti-Anarchy and Anti-Syndicalism Statutes

From the ‘‘Salem witch trials’’ to the criminal prosecutions that constitute part of the government’s ‘‘war on terror,’’ American criminal law has been used to stamp out threats, perceived or actual, to federal and state governments.

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Antipolygamy Laws

In the United States antipolygamy laws were exclusively aimed at the polygamous practices of the nineteenth- century Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) which began to publicly practice and advocate polygamy in 1852.

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Becker Amendment

The Becker amendment was one of the more significant congressional attempts to overturn an unpopular holding of the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Bills of Rights in Early State Constitutions

State constitution making began during the Revolution. By 1787, when delegates from twelve of the original thirteen states (Rhode Island never sent any delegates) met in Philadelphia to write the national constitution, eleven of the first thirteen states had written constitutions.

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Structure Bill of Rights

The structure of the American Bill of Rights reflects its eighteenth-century origins. The framers of the Constitution did not include a bill of rights because they honestly believed that one was unnecessary.

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Blaine Amendment

The Blaine amendment was a proposed 1876 amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

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Broadcast Regulation

The history of broadcast regulation affords a unique civil liberties perspective because it is the sole example of a government agency created to supervise the press.

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Cable Television Regulation

Cable television regulation began in the late 1940s and 1950s primarily as a local matter. The first cable systems needed easements to construct facilities on public and private land.

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Campaign Finance Reform, No. 1021

A California politician once famously observed: ‘‘Money is the Mother’s Milk of Politics.’’ For at least a century, the Congress has tried to legislate against this dictum.

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