Why Term Limits are Actually Unconstitutional

In spite of many conservative and libertarian politicians promising the implementation of term limits for members of the House and Senate, this implementation is actually unconstitutional. If you're now wondering how much hope you have of this changing, it's pretty slim, but is possible, I suppose.

You see, in Article II, Section II of the Constitution it states:

"The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen."

And Article II, Section III of the Constitiution states:

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.

Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies.

No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.
The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.

Nowhere does the language of this centuries-old document denote limits on the number of times a person can be elected to the same office. But why is this a problem? In 1969, the Supreme Court of the United States (which will be referred to as SCOTUS) decided Powell v. McCormack. This case involve a man by the name of Adam Clayton Powell, a Representative from Harlem, New York, who, after failing to respond to civil matters against him, was held in criminal contempt. He was re-elected, but the House of Representatives voted to exclude him from taking his position as a Representative. Is it constitutional for the House to exclude someone if they meet the age, citizenship, and residence requirements that are laid out by the Consitution? 

In a sweeping 7 to 1 decision by the Warren Court, the answer was a resounding no. Chief Justice Earl Warren, in his majority opinion, stated that "As Madison pointed out at the Convention, this principle is undermined as much by limiting whom the people can select as by limiting the franchise itself." Thus, the Court set precedent that Congress could not add further requirements to prevent a duly elected officer from being seated. 

Then in another case in 1995, the Court ruled on U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton. In November of 1992, Alabama adopted Amendment 73 to their constitution which instated term limits and also rendered Representatives who had served for three or more terms, ineligible to run again, and Senators who had served two or more terms, ineligible for re-election. But are the states allowed to add qualifications to those already outlined in the US Constitution?

In a close 5 to 4 decision, the Rehnquist Court ruled that the states could not add such qualifications. The majority opinion, written by Justice John Paul Stevens, insisted that these qualifications often have the intent of "creating additional qualifications indirectly" and would likely result in handicapping certain classes. He also pointed out that "...allowing individual States to craft their own congressional qualifications would erode the structure designed by the Framers to form a 'more perfect Union.'" Thus, term limits are unconstitutional. 

Constitutional term limits would require the SCOTUS to take another case related to the matter and then rule that it is constitutional. This is extremely unlikely to happen because the Court rarely overturns precedent. While it has been know to happen (i.e. The famous Brown v. Board of Education (1954)), it does not happen with great frequency. This is primarily to keep the law stable and predictable so that other judges in lower courts are able to rule on cases in concordance with the Constitution. 

Alternatively, Congress could choose to propose and ratify an amendement to the Constitution. This, however, is a nearly insurmountable task. First, someone must propose the amendment. Mere days ago Senator Ted Cruze proposed an amendment that looks very much like the one added to Alabama's constitution in U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton (1995). So we have the proposal. Then, the House AND Senate must approve the proposal by a two-thirds majority in each. Let's say, for posterity's sake, that a bunch of people who probably don't want to be subject to limits on their power do, in fact, pass the amendment. It's not over yet. Three-fourths of state legislatures must ratify the amendment. That's 38 of the 50 states. This is the method by which all 27 of our Constitution's current amendments have been added. 

To the same effect, two-thirds of the state legislatures could call for a Constitutional Convention at which the amendment is proposed. The proposal is then distributed to the states for ratification and three-fourths of the states must approve the amendment. While this is a viable option, it has never before been used to create a constitutional amendment.

So, why do politicians continue to make these promises of term limits that they likely cannot keep? I suspect, and this is entirely my own conjecture, that if politicians at least "try" to make this policy come to fruition and they are stopped by the Constitution, then it isn't their fault, at least they tried, and you will still vote for them for doing so. Besides, how many people know that term limits have already been deemed unconstitutional? I didn't. If a politician says they'll make it happen, we have every reason to believe them unless we are aware of the fact that the SCOTUS has already ruled on the issue and deemed it impossible under the current circumstances. 

Until I discovered this interesting tidbit, I myself was a proponent for term limits (imagine my shock at reading they're unconstitutional). There is so little that we know about the law and its effects on government. It may be beneficial for every American to take a course in Constitutional Law if only to learn about the court cases that have had a major impact on the way our government is allowed to function, and especially how those permissions relate to our election of political candidates who make promises they know very well they can't keep. This would be a useful addition to any voter's arsenal of information. Understanding how the government works is vitally important to our election of competent, efficient, and effective government officials since, at the end of the day, they are speaking and acting on our behalf. While I do hate to burst anyone's bubble, as an aspiring student of the law, I feel it is more important to educate than placate. 

If you're interested in this topic or simply must see for yourself that what I'm saying is true, I recommend Oyez.com for searching cases. You can read a brief summary of the case, listen to the oral arguments, and read the entire case which is linked right there on the page. You can find information on the Constitution and how to amend it on LexisNexis.com or just read it in its entirety, which is never a bad idea (I'm a huge fan). The internet is full of false information, so beware and tread carefully. 

Thanks for reading!

Onward and Upward

I know I haven't posted in ages, but that's because between how boring my life feels to me and how busy I tend to be, I wasn't so sure what to post. However, my life got infinitely more interesting in the last couple of weeks, and I have come into quite a bit of free time - at least for the time being. In the past two weeks, I got engaged and was hired to finish the year out as a Resident Advisor.

Prior to these huge, life-changing decisions, I was just a college Senior trying to finish up my undergraduate degree and apply to Law School. I was working as an Office Assistant (OA) in one of the residence halls on my campus and I'd been dating my now-fiancé for five years. My life pretty much consisted of sitting at the Front Desk until I annoyed my friends, going to class (on occasion), and eating food with my friends.

My room is situated across the hall from  my younger sister, who is two years younger than me. We're best friends and we do pretty much everything together. I can always count on her to keep me company while eating a meal, spot me a twenty, or give me honest advice. She's the Elsa to my Anna and we like it that way. However, as I prepare to move across campus to mold and shape the future of this university, I find that leaving my sister is the hardest part. Of course leaving the OA staff and the community that became my family is difficult too; actually leaving this place might be harder than leaving home to come here in the first place.

I've been doing a lot of #adulting in the past few weeks and it is so much harder than we like to pretend it is. It's a lot of making hard decisions where both results would probably be good, but one is what you should do and the other is what you want to do. Sometimes they're the same thing, but a lot of times they aren't. Deep down, I wanted to stay right where I am. It's safe: I already have friends there, my co-workers are amazing, my sister lives here, my classes are close by, and I was President of the hall's governing body. But it would have been reckless to ignore the financial gains and the opportunity for new experiences to slip by me, especially since I'm planning a wedding for this summer and they are not cheap.

Either way, this blog is about to get popping as I try to navigate being a graduating senior, an RA, applying to law school, and planning a wedding!

So stay tuned!!

Before the Pen in my Erin Condren

Back in August, I bit the bullet and splurged on an Erin Condren Life Planner, thus a love affair was born. Since then, I have fallen full throttle into the black hole that is planner decorating. BUT, I value efficiency above most other things and tend to only use "decorations" that fill some purpose. With that being said, let's get started!

My monthly spread is a little bit messy. I've been trying some new things and in April, my planner will get a complete overhaul since I bought a new monthly kit, so stay tuned for that! I buy all of my stickers on Etsy since they're cute and there's a huge variety. The shops featured in this post include:

 Packaged to Plan monthly kit by CraftedbyCorley

Itty Bitty Kawaii Celebrate the Day and itty Bitty Kawaii Happy Mail by SweetKawaiiDesigns

The Functional College kit and Telephone Icons by RAKPaperStickers

Hydrate Side Bar by Libbieandco 

TV Show Reminders by ThisVeryCraftyMama

Every week in my planner starts out looking like this before I add in classes, homework, club meetings, and other happenings to the week. I have my "Resolutions" up in the top left-hand corner:

Migraine Diary

LSAT Prep

Eat Healthy

Keep Room Clean

Budget

Keep Kosher

My goal is to do each of these things every day of the week. So far, I'm doing pretty well at the healthy and Kosher ones, since they go hand-in-hand a little bit. I'm definitely failing at the rest. I take my LSATs in June and I've studied maybe 4 times (I'm never getting in!). But every week they stare at me from the pages of my planner and I feel a little bit more motivated. 

My side bar is my goals and to dos for the week and I've split up To Do, To Call, and To Email into their own little sections. The Packaged to Plan kit comes with this nifty little daily checklist that I use to remind myself that my sister and I have to move our car. (We're manipulating the parking situation at our school so that we don't have to pay $750 for the same parking that costs commuters $300, but it means we have to move our van, Bertha, twice a day.) Finally, my hydrate sticker is at the bottom. I have chronic migraines and I never drink enough water, so I bought a tracking water bottle to pair with my sticker, in hopes of it helping; so far, so good. 

This week is Spring Break, so I don't have much of anything going on until later in the week. The Packaged to Plan kit comes with cute boxes, flags, and a few icons that match the week's spread. I always use half boxes for things that take around 2-3 hours and full boxes for 3-6 hours. The little postage stamp looking squares I use to keep track of my work shifts. I LOVE to do lists, so naturally I have a ton of checklist flags, though I hardly ever use them in my current system (again, stay tuned for April!) Pretty much my whole week is just catching up on things and getting the ball rolling for Maximus in Minimus, so checklists were perfect for this week! 

As of now, here's the final product! Things will get added to the lists as I think of them, and who knows? Maybe something interesting will pop up!

How do you guys like to plan?

Make the day great!

Rachel

Back with a Vengeance

Before now, this blog was just an outlet for me to experiment with writing in a public forum. I honestly thought (or hoped) that followers would come overnight and motivate me to keep writing. Boy, was I wrong! After studying motivation in college (I'm a psychology major), I have learned all of the ways I have to motivate myself to post, then the followers will come. So, I have redesigned the blog, designed a logo, created social media pages, and started calendars, to do lists, and a notebook dedicated solely to my blog.

The redesign focuses on the title: Maximus in Minimus, which means "greatness in small things" in Latin. I took three semesters of Latin and absolutely fell in love with it! This phrase has become my motto in the past year or so because I struggle with mental illness that makes me feel small, but I remember that good things come in small packages and it helps me cope. The design focuses on a muted, peaceful color palette and a pretty, quirky feel. I aim to make this blog me on "paper," so bear with me as I make strides to figure out exactly what my M.O. is (there's that Latin again!)

My college roommate and sister (yes, my actual, by-blood, share-the-same-parents sister), Mara, wanted to start a blog too (check it out at http://blamelessbeauty.blogspot.com/) and we are holding each other accountable for posting and boosting each others' moral when the going gets rough.

I'm hoping to dedicate the time and effort that this endeavor deserves and post some great, helpful content for my followers! Please take a moment to answer the survey question in the bar on the right, I want to make sure I devote the time to the things my viewers want to see! If there's something you don't see that you'd like to hear about, post it in the comments section and I'll see what I can do!


Greatness is yet to come!

Rachel

Erin Condren Planner Review: Unboxing

So, I finally bit the bullet and decided that I could (and should!) splurge a little on an Erin Condren Life Planner. If you're a planner nut like me, you've probably heard of these babies since they are the creme de la creme of planners. The planner I had purchased in May wasn't working out and I needed a new one, so I shelled out the $55 (or $66.96 with the expedited shipping) for the Life Planner. I actually purchased this in August before school started, but I wanted to talk not only about my first impressions but my impressing after about a month of use. Buckle your seatbelts and prepare for awesome!

How gorgeous is this box?!

First off, this box is gorgeous! That's all.

Tissue paper makes everything feel magical!

Look at all the goodies!

When you open the beautiful box, there is a beautiful layer of tissue paper. The box and tissue paper make the product feel really luxurious and expensive (which it is for a poor college girl like me).








When you fold back the tissue paper, there's a pile of free goodies! These goodies include a coupon for $10 off your next purchase, a postcard, a sticker, and really cute gift tags! (I lay all these out in the next picture, so keep scrolling!)

Goodies!

The top left corner of my box was really sticky after I pulled the shipping label off, so I put the purple postcard up there. I use the box to store things I want to put in my scrapbooks. (I couldn't throw away such a pretty box!)

There it is! The Holy Grail!

Finally, under a layer of big ol' bubble wrap, there's the planner (I might've cried a little).

Size comparison to my 2014 MacBook Air

Size comparison to my hand (which is tiny).

For posterity's sake, here are two pictures of size comparison. I thought it would be big and bulky to hold/carry around, but it isn't really. I actually really (REALLY) love the way it feels in my hand.


FINALLY we're getting to the good stuff! The actual planner!

Strong, but bendy cover. (This is the cleanest my desk will ever look.)

Let's talk about construction. This planner has an incredibly durable cover. It's made of a thick laminate plastic and is removable! (I just bought two more covers!) The planner is hand coiled with a thick, aluminum, one-inch coil. I believe it can withstand 110 pounds of pressure. There's a sheet of really lovely printed vellum (the see-through overlay stuff on wedding invitations) covering the first page of the planner. It's another one of those things that gives it that luxurious feel. The pages are printed on good quality paper (I have yet to have a pen bleed through). The print quality is excellent (and I'm an ex-printer's daughter). The colors never feel thin and nothing looks fuzzy, even the teeny tiny print and embellishments on days with holidays.

Month view

The month view is nice and big with plenty of room to write stuff. I was really concerned the tiny boxes for the 23rd, 24th, 30th, and 31st would be really cramped, especially because the 23rd and 24th are part of Welcome Weekend and I had TONS of things going on. I had to write a little bit smaller than usual, but everything fit. I don't use the Goals section a ton yet, but I'll do another post on how I set up my planner. There are also a couple of pages in the front that you can use for goal planning, etc. (More on those in December when I set them up!)

Vertical Week View

The week view is gorgeous and incredibly spacious! There's plenty of room for me to write in my entire crazy schedule and my homework (and not have a panic attack over how cramped it looks)! There's also a little Thankful Thought box in the top left corner that I think is really cute. I also use stickers for some of my planning to make certain things pop. The actual planner comes with three sheets of stickers in the back: one is pre-printed with events like birthdays, appointments, game days, etc and one is blank for you to fill in your own things. I LOVE these stickers as they fit perfectly in the boxes and are repositionable! The planner also comes with a double-sided "Keep it Together" folder with a perpetual calendar for birthdays/anniversaries, important contacts and passwords and a clear, zip-lock, plastic pouch in the back.

All in all, I highly recommend this planner. If you're willing to spend a little dough, this planner is a GEM! It has everything I need and more. I like looking at it and that makes me want to write in it. The design is aesthetically pleasing while still maintaining the level of functionality necessary for a busy person. There are a zillion ways to customize them and use them for your plannering. You can find blog posts and YouTube videos all over the Internet. I myself will be posting about how I organize mine pretty soon so keep a look out!

As always, thanks for reading!

Rachel

Internet Iceberg

Sorry I've been MIA, blogosphere! The boyfriend has been having a ridiculous amount of trouble getting Internet set up at his (brand) new apartment, which is where I spend the vast majority of my free time (watching him play video games). Allow me to explain and go on a mini rant about the wonders of Capitalism.

When we (I mean he, but we're practically one person) first started the process we thought it was going to be easy. We call AT&T and they come and install the U-verse and BAM Internet. Unfortunately, there was much more hidden below the surface and getting Internet became more like the sinking of the Titanic.

First, we had to reschedule the initial installation appointment due to the fact that we didn't know what the new apartment number was yet. Okay, so we called and rescheduled for after the 4th of July Weekend. They no-showed. I was at the apartment hanging out so I would be there during the install. Boyfriend was so nervous about it that he skipped a two-hour class to be there, but no one came. We called and they said the appointment had gotten cancelled due to a "facility error." Meanwhile, people are moving into the apartments around us and getting their Internet installed.

This exact thing happened two more times. At this point, we're ready to go somewhere else. We started looking at a local company that charges half for the same amount of high-speed Internet, and were thrilled! After talking to the landlady, however, we discovered (and here's where Capitalism comes in) that we had no choice but to use AT&T. Apparently, the complex made a deal with AT&T and allowed them to be the only people to wire the place, effectively taking away our rights as consumers. It'd be fine if they included it in the rent, but they don't. We have to go separately and call AT&T and work everything out with them. (This is why Communism sucks guys. Being told what to buy SUCKS.)

Finally the landlady's office gave us a more local AT&T representative we could call. At first, he was unhelpful. Then he finally offered a discount for all of the trouble and somehow pushed the right button to get the Internet installed (it came a couple days ago and I could've kissed those technicians). So now we have Internet! However, the promised discount was not added to Boyfriend's account AND they charged a $100 installation fee that he said would be waved.

I guess it's back to the drawing board with AT&T. Have you ever been told what to buy?

As always, thanks for reading!

Aperture and Shutter Speed and Flashes, Oh My!

Last fall, I tried to take this great Intro to Digital Photography class because

a) I LOVE photography and

b) It filled my Art General Education requirement.

Well the equipment for such a class is not cheap and I had no way to afford any of it (hello, poor college student!) so I dropped the class and prayed I could find a way to get the equipment. My prayers were answered when I received the opportunity to submit a proposal for a $2,000 grant to do a Creative Arts project and present it at an Expo next Spring. For my project I'm going to take the class this fall and apply my skills to put together a presentation for the Expo.

I got my shiny new Canon Rebel T5i with and 18-55mm IS STM kit lens and a 55-250mm IS STM lens just in time for my little sister's graduation this weekend! Of course I had to go out and play with it before then and haven't put it down since I got the battery charged. The 55-250mm lens is my favorite of the two but I took some sweet shots with it as you can see here.

My dad was teasing me asking if I was shooting in Auto. My boyfriend, Garrett's mom is also an avid photographer and had advised me to shoot primarily in aperture priority, so that's what I've been using. But all last week I watched camera videos on YouTube and have been playing with shutter speed like a 5-year-old (and I take the thing everywhere - my parents laugh at me).

(There's a bunny in this picture, I promise.)

I've been really excited to learn how to take awesome pictures and I feel like a total professional with my (pretend) fancy equipment. Sorry in advanced if you guys get a ton of photography postings (I'm totally geeking out!!!!) I'm really excited to share my journey with you all and (hopefully!) share some really great photos!

What kind of camera do you have? What kinds of pictures do you like to take?

As always thanks for reading!
Rachel