Jason "phaedrus" Goray wrote, "There's a few responses in different
directions that I have to this. First of all, you're talking about US
Citizenship which implies the right to vote for national leadership. The
Constitution (and ammendments) make no provisions for how local or state
leadership is determined. If a city were to be run by a local church, that
would not be unconsitutional (as long as it were not prohibited by the state
constitution)."
[BRM] Actually, untrue. There are several limits derived from the
Federal Constitution on the power that a state can delegate to municipal
government.
To take Jason's example, the first amendment does say that "Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"--so, by its
literal terms, that clause applies only to the Federal government. But the
protections in the Bill of Rights have been applied to the states as well by
way of the 14th amendment, adopted in 1868 during Reconstruction, which says
that "no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States . . . nor deny to
any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The
process by which the protections in the Bill of Rights have been applied to
the states through the 14th amendment is called "incorporation," and the
Supreme Court of the United States held in Everson v. Board of Education
(1947) that the protection against establishment of religion had been
"incorporated" into the 14th amendment.
The Minnesota Constitution (art. I, sec. 16) also prohibits "any
preference . . . by law to any religious establishment or mode of worship."
But even without that state-law constitutional provision, the Minnesota
Legislature could not establish a municipal theocracy, or let a city
establish its own church-run government, because of the Federal
Constitution. Likewise, the Minnesota Legislature could not enact any scheme
for local elections or government that ran afoul of any right guaranteed in
the Federal Constitution.
BRM
Brian Melendez
St. Anthony West (Ward 3)
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