The Constitution in Your Community 

Assume that your law firm has been retained by Ima T. Partier, a local activist who is upset with the decisions and behavior of some state and local officials. Specifically, Mr. Partier believes that your state’s governor and your city’s mayor ( or other chief executive) should be removed from office due to malfeasance and other shortcomings in office. Mr. Partier has retained your firm to research the legal process for taking removal action against these officials. Prepare a short memorandum ( 1– 3 pages) de-scribing the process, as defined by your state’s constitution and applicable statutes and local ordinances.

Going Federal 

Assume you are working for a local attorney. You have a client who is scheduled to appear before a federal judge, and she would like to know as much about the judge as possible. Identify one of the U. S. District Court judges in the federal district where you live or work. Determine what president nominated the judge and who in your state recommended his appointment to the president. Has the judge issued any controversial decisions? Can you easily label those decisions as liberal, moderate, or conservative? Is this in alignment with the nominating president’s political leanings?

Moot Court 

As you learned in this chapter, state courts are the final arbiters of state law. But federal courts often hear cases that have both federal and state issues. In some cases, the federal court hearing such a case will send the state question back to the Supreme Court of the state for decision. This happened in 2011 when the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit was hearing a challenge to California’s same- sex marriage prohibition, known as Proposition 8. After losing on appeal, the state refused to continue to defend Proposition 8 on appeal. However, a private group that opposes same- sex marriages wanted to continue to defend the proposition when the state itself has chosen to not de-fend the law. The Ninth Circuit was not sure if California allowed nonstate defendants to defend state laws, and it asked the California Supreme Court to answer the question. Break into groups of two and argue the question.