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The College Board will be revising the SAT, and (!) include reading passages from our founding documents.

Every exam will include a reading passage from either one of the nation’s “founding documents,” such as the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, or from one of the important discussions of such texts, such as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

I support this change, wholeheartedly! Let’s hope they can tell the Declaration and Constitution apart.

The President, by pure fiat, has decided that the health insurance plans that we all need to be healthy, are not really necessary until 2016, past the midterms, and he is on his way out of office. No, there is no authority for such an unprecedented failure to take care that the laws are faithfully executed.

So what is the next shoe to drop? We still have the full month of March to go. Maybe he will delay the individual mandate penalty another year? Whatever it takes to get it past the election, right.

I have to second Jonathan Turley here:

“I support national health care, but what the president is doing is effectively amending or negating the federal law to fit his preferred approach,” said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University. “Democrats will rue the day if they remain silent in the face of this shift of power to the executive branch.”

When President Bush issued a few signing statements, the American Bar Association nearly prepared Articles of Impeachment. President Obama is running roughshod over the Constitution, and no one seems to care.

On Thursday, March 6, at 12:30 I will be giving a talk on Unprecedented at the Florida State University College of Law. Later that day, at 6:00 p.m. at the Governors Club (202 South Adams Street, Tallahassee), I will be giving an encore presentation to the Tallahassee Lawyers Chapter. Details are here. The challenge to Obamacare officially begin in Tallahassee, though the first suit was filed in Pensacola.

On Friday and Saturday, I will be at the Federalist Society Student Conference at the University of Florida.

I hope to see you there.

Update: This may be one of the best flyers I’ve seen!

The lecture notes are here, and the live chat is here. Thankfully, Texas has abolished the Rule in Shelley’s case, the Doctrine of Worthier Title, and the Rule Forbidding a Remainder in the Grantor’s Heirs. This is the Texas Rule Against Perpetuities.

RULE AGAINST PERPETUITIES. The rule against perpetuities applies to trusts other than charitable trusts. Accordingly, an interest is not good unless it must vest, if at all, not later than 21 years after some life in being at the time of the creation of the interest, plus a period of gestation. Any interest in a trust may, however, be reformed or construed to the extent and as provided by Section 5.043.

In case you were wondering, the youngest mother on record is five-years old. And in a bizarre case, a man adopted his girlfriend to protect his assets.

And, if you hate the Rule against Perpetuities, blame this guy. Orlando Bridgeman, whose crazy conveyances raised the possibility of perpetuity, which led to the creation of the Rule Against Perpetuities. Don’t blame me. Blame Orlando. Note: The Rule Against Perpetuities will not be tested on the final examination. In other words, this is a wrap for RAP.

The lecture notes are here. The live chat is here.

The Enforcement Powers of the 14th Amendment

• Enforcement Powers (1306-1307).
• The Civil Rights Cases (1307-1318).
• Notes (1318-1322).
• Note on 11th Amendment (1262-1263).
• Sovereign Immunity (557-558).
• 11th Amendment (558).
• Chisolm v. Georgia (558-566).
• Hans v. Louisiana (566-570).
• City of Boerne v. Flores (1327-1337).
• United States v. Morrison (1322-1327).

The Civil Rights Cases

The Grand Opera House in New York CIty, formerly known as Pike’s Opera House, was located on the Norhtwest Corner of 8th Avenue and 23rd Street, in Chelsea. It was was shut down in 1960.

Maguire’s Opera House, formerly known as San Francisco Hall, was a three-story theater on Washington Street between Kearny and Montgomery in San Francisco.

I was not able to find photographs of Nichol’s Inn in Jefferson City, MO, the Topeka Inn in Topeka, Kansas, or the Tennssee Parlor Car.

This is Justice John Marshall Harlan I, who authored the solo dissent in the Civil Rights Cases.

United States v. Morrison

This is Christy Brzonkala, the plaintiff in what would become United States v. Morrison. I could not find a photograph of Antonio J. Morrison and James Crawford.

City of Boerne v. Flores

Here are photographs of St. Peter the Apostle Church in Boerne, Texas, the subject of City of Boerne v. Flores. I suppose this church makes an exception to the “Though Shalt Not Kill” Commandment for the Religious Freedoms Restoration Act, which met its constitutional demise within the hallowed walls of this house of worship.

These photographs are courtesy of Hanah Volokh.