Constitution

Proposed revision of the U.S. Constitution: "We the Peoples of the Diverse States ... " WILLIAM T. SCHNEIDER Sherman Oaks

The United States has reached a historic tipping point, with children born to Latino, Asian, African American and mixed-race parents now constituting a majority of all births, the Census Bureau reported Thursday. The long-expected demographic shift is considered a milestone for the nation, though one that California passed three decades ago when births to racial and ethnic minorities surpassed those to white parents. The new report shows that minorities accounted for about 2 million, or 50.4%, of U.S. births in the 12 months ending July 1 of last year.

Earlier this week, after grading student papers from my Yale Law School class on constitutional law, I began reading federal District Judge Roger Vinson's recent opinion declaring "Obamacare" unconstitutional. One thing was immediately clear: My students understand the Constitution better than the judge. I strive to be apolitical in evaluating students and judges alike. Over the years, many of my favorite students have been proud conservatives, while others have been flaming liberals.

Voters in North Carolina on Tuesday approved Amendment One, a fiercely debated and highly restrictive amendment to the state constitution that defines marriage as the legal union of a man and a woman. The amendment not only outlaws same-sex marriage - already illegal in the state - but bans civil unions and domestic partnerships for gay or straight couples. Family law experts say it will threaten domestic partnership health benefits for local government workers and strip unmarried couples, both gay and straight, of their rights to make financial or emergency medical decisions for an incapacitated partner.

The Conservative Assault on the Constitution Erwin Chemerinsky Simon & Schuster: 326 pp., $27

Critics of Obamacare are now upping the ante, claiming that its basic outlines are not just unwise but unconstitutional. I'm no healthcare expert, but I have spent the last three decades studying the Constitution, and the current plan easily passes constitutional muster. It's true that the Constitution grants Congress authority to legislate only in the areas enumerated in the document itself. Other matters are left to the states under the 10th Amendment. But if enumerated power does exist, the 10th Amendment objection disappears.

Thank you for the special section. The historical comments following each section of the Constitution should be very helpful to readers trying to understand and appreciate the basic law of the land. The Times has celebrated the 200th anniversary of our Constitution in a most fitting manner. CLARA LINK Pasadena

Re "Two courts, one 'sin,' " editorial, Oct. 21 The U.S. Supreme Court's task in District of Columbia vs. Heller was "to say what the law is," as established in Marbury vs. Madison. The opinion and dissents in Heller are clear-cut, relating directly to the words of the 2nd Amendment. Agree or disagree, at least both sides are on topic with a direct constitutional issue. Roe vs. Wade and Miranda vs. Arizona created rights unmentioned in the Constitution, bypassing the amendment process.

North Carolina's Amendment One, which would define marriage as strictly between one man and one woman in the state's constitution, finally goes before voters Tuesday following months of fighting for and against the proposal. The amendment, which would ban not only gay marriage but also civil unions and domestic partnerships, would add constitutional weight to North Carolina's existing ban on gay marriages. A number of conservative and religious groups support of the bill, the most prominent being the Rev. Billy Graham, who was born in North Carolina and lives near Asheville.

Fourteen months after the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, a new Egypt is still a work in progress -- or possibly regress. The opposition that swelled Cairo's Tahrir Square has fractured into Islamist and secular factions. The Islamist-dominated parliament continues to compete for influence with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. And last week a presidential election scheduled for May was thrown into confusion. First an administrative court suspended the work of a 100-member assembly charged with writing a new constitution, raising the possibility that a president will be elected before the nature of the new Egyptian state is defined.

Whether the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold President Obama's landmark healthcare overhaul or scrap at least the most controversial part - the requirement that most Americans have health insurance - won't be known until probably this summer, when the justices are expected to rule. But after three days of oral arguments concluded this week, four constitutional law experts weighed in on the strengths and weaknesses of the cases made by the administration's top lawyers, Solicitor Gen. Donald Verrilli Jr. and his deputy, Edwin Kneedler, and Paul D. Clement, solicitor general in the George W. Bush administration, who represents the 26 states challenging the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. :: Adam Winkler, UCLA constitutional law professor "To no one's surprise, Paul Clement has been extremely persuasive on the part of the challengers.

One afternoon in 1934, Supreme Court Justice Harlan Fiske Stone decided to quietly help Labor Secretary Frances Perkins out of a jam. Her quandary was how to write a Social Security law that would survive scrutiny by the court's conservative bloc. Stone, a progressive, pulled her aside during a tea party at his home, glanced around to make sure he wasn't overheard, and whispered, "The taxing power of the federal government, my dear; the taxing power is sufficient for everything you want and need.

When the Supreme Court takes up the 2010 healthcare reform law this week, the legal and political arguments will be in near-perfect alignment. And the stakes couldn't be higher on either front. The court briefs echo the themes that President Obama's Republican rivals are sounding on the campaign trail: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which they derisively call "Obamacare," is an attack on freedom, epitomizing the administration's disregard for constitutional limits on federal power and disrespect for citizens' rights to make decisions for themselves.

Defendants in criminal cases have a constitutional right to a competent lawyer's advice when deciding whether to accept a plea bargain, the Supreme Court ruled, providing a significant expansion of rights that could have a broad impact on the justice system. "Ours for the most part is a system of pleas, not a system of trials," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said for the majority in a pair of 5-4 decisions. Noting that about 97% of federal convictions and 94% of state convictions result from guilty pleas, Kennedy wrote that "in today's criminal justice system, the negotiation of a plea bargain, rather than the unfolding of a trial, is almost always the critical point for the defendant.

Supreme Court justices appeared troubled Tuesday by mandatory life sentences without parole imposed on murderers who are 14 or younger. There are 79 prisoners who were 14 or younger when they were given life terms with no hope for parole for their part in a murder. To the apparent surprise of the justices, most of them were condemned to die in prison without a judge or jury weighing whether they deserved a more lenient sentence because of their youth. The justices sounded closely split and uncertain over whether to set new constitutional limits on the prison terms for these young murderers.

When the Supreme Court hears arguments on President Obama's healthcare law, what will be at stake is not just whether Americans can be required to have health insurance, but whether the Constitution puts any limit on Congress' power to regulate the economy. Since 1936, the justices have not struck down a major federal regulatory law on the grounds that Congress went too far. The court's forbearance on matters touching Congress' authority to regulate commerce has allowed Washington's power to grow, to protect civil rights and the environment, to ensure safer automobiles and drugs, and to help boost the wages and benefits of workers.