Does The Wright Amendment of 1979 still exist?
Wright Amendment
The Wright Amendment of 1979 was a United States federal law that governed traffic at Dallas Love Field, an airport in Dallas, Texas, with some provisions also applying to other mid-size airfields in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, including Meacham Field and Addison Airport. It originally limited most non-stop flights from Love Field to destinations within Texas and neighboring states in order to encourage airlines to use Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) so that the investment in that new airport could be recouped. Additional states were allowed in 1997 and 2005. The law was amended and partially repealed in 2006 and then fully repealed in 2014 because DFW was well established.
Dickey–Wicker Amendment
The Dickey-Wicker Amendment is the name of an appropriation bill rider attached to a bill passed by United States Congress in 1995, and signed by former President Bill Clinton, which prohibits the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from using appropriated funds for the creation of human embryos for research purposes or for research in which human embryos are destroyed. HHS funding includes the funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Technically the Dickey Amendment is a "rider" to other legislation, which amends the original legislation. The rider receives its name from the name of the Congressman that originally introduced the amendment, Representative Jay Dickey. The Dickey amendment language has been added to each of the Labor, HHS, and Education appropriations acts for FY1997 through FY2009. The original rider can be found in Section 128 of P.L. 104-99
. The wording of the rider is generally the same year after year. For FY2009, the wording in Division F, Section 509 of the Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009,
Equal Rights Amendment
At the 1944 Democratic National Convention, the Democrats made the divisive step of including the ERA in their platform, but the Democratic Party did not become united in favor of the amendment until congressional passage in 1972. The main support base for the ERA until the late 1960s was among middle class Republican women. The League of Women Voters, formerly the National American Woman Suffrage Association, opposed the Equal Rights Amendment until 1972, fearing the loss of protective labor legislation.
Dallas Love Field
On June 15, 2006, it was announced that American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth had all agreed to seek full repeal of the Wright Amendment, with several conditions. Among them: the ban on nonstop flights outside the Wright zone would remain until 2014; through-ticketing to domestic airports (connecting flights to long-haul destinations) would be allowed immediately; Love Field's maximum gate capacity would be reduced from 32 to 20 gates; and Love Field would handle only domestic flights non-stop. Southwest would be able to operate from 16 gates, American 2 gates, and Continental 2 gates. JetBlue and Northwest Airlines claimed that the gate cap would effectively ban any airlines not named in the compromise to ever operate from Love Field, even though the agreement called for Southwest, American and Continental to share gates with new airlines that desired to serve the airport. The cap of 20 gates would effectively restrict the purpose of the 2014 lifting of the ban on nonstop flights outside the Wright zone.
Reed Amendment (immigration)
Though the Reed Amendment received strong bipartisan support during the committee stage, Democratic lawmakers including Daniel Patrick Moynihan later criticised it as inappropriate, embarrassing, and badly-drafted. Efforts at establishing procedures to enforce the amendment ran into early difficulties, and the executive branch never promulgated the implementing regulations. The Department of Homeland Security has stated that they cannot obtain the information required to enforce the amendment unless the former U.S. citizen "affirmatively admit[s]" his or her reasons for renouncing citizenship, and so from 2002 to 2015, only two people were denied entry to the United States on the grounds of the amendment.
American librarianship and human rights
The subject of women receiving equal pay for doing the same job as their male counterparts came up in librarianship long before the Equal Rights Amendment was proposed. In 1919, an American Library Association resolution sponsored by the New York Library Employees Union and promoting equal pay and opportunities for women in librarianship was defeated by a vote of 121 to 1. In 1970, Betty Wilson brought forth a resolution that would have the ALA refrain from using facilities that discriminate against women. That resolution was also defeated by the membership. However, in 1977 the American Library Association took a stand for the Equal Rights Amendment. The organization stated that they would no longer hold conferences in states that did not ratify the amendment, with the boycott measure set to take place in 1981. An ERA Task Force was formed in 1979 towards this goal and a sum of $25,000 was allocated towards task force operations in unratified states. At the time, a number of state library associations passed pro-ERA resolutions and formed committees on women in libraries.
Wright Amendment
On July 25, 2006, a leaked memorandum from an employee of the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division raised concerns about airline competition in North Texas and urged legislators to force a renegotiation of the deal. It also stated that the removal of gates and a cap of 20 gates for the airport would violate federal anti-trust legislation. This capping of gates would affect the other airlines that might be attracted to getting gates at Dallas Love Field airport.
Women Against Feminism
In the Late 20th Century, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was passed in congress, this was, at the time, seen as a huge win for feminists supporting the amendment. Unfortunately, this amendment only received 35 of the necessary 38 state ratifications, and five state legislatures voted to revoke their ratifications before the deadline on March 22, 1979 (later extended to June 30, 1982). Therefore, the ERA expired and never went into effect, turning the huge win into a loss for supporters of the amendment. This amendment would have granted equal rights and opportunities to, and would have imposed equal duties on, every citizen of the United States, regardless of sex. Phyllis Schlafly was a large contributor and leader of the anti-ERA movement. Among those supporting Phyllis and the anti-ERA movement were high-income men who gained the least with the bill being passed and lost more because women in the workplace would mean more job competition. But there were also other feminists and labor activists like Rose Schneiderman and Myra Wolfgang who fiercely opposed the ERA on the grounds that the amendment would make privileges only extended to women illegal. The last demographic group of non-supporters was found to be predominantly uneducated older white citizens who were married.
Keith L. T. Wright
Keith L. T. Wright (born January 3, 1955) is an American politician and a former member of the New York State Assembly. He was first elected to the assembly in 1992 and was re-elected eleven times. In early 2007, he proposed a bill limiting retail sale of violent video games for individuals below 18 years of age. This proposed law stirred up controversy and protest amongst gamer communities. Wright is also the author of the bill to apologize for African slavery in New York, which was second only to South Carolina in the American slave trade, the first Northern State make such an apology. Wright is also credited with coining the term "Super-Duper Tuesday" in response to the shifting of New York's election primary date to the 5th of February. This is now the common terminology for the change of dates nationwide.
Standing Rules of the United States Senate, Rule XIX
During a debate on June 25, 1979 regarding an amendment that would remove $13 million from the Economic Development Revolving Fund, which would in turn jeopardize a loan guarantee for a new mill for Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel, Senator Lowell Weicker (R-CT) said of Senator John Heinz (R-PA) "When a member substitutes innuendo for fact or the persuasion of logic, he is either an idiot or devious, and the senator from Pennsylvania qualifies in both ways." Heinz responded by storming to the front of the Senate with a rule book to invoke Rule 19. The presiding officer ordered Weicker to sit down and stop talking, halting debate on the amendment until Majority Leader Robert Byrd brokered a truce in which Weicker retracted his remarks and shook hands with Heinz.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) invoked Rule XIX on February 7, 2017, against Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) during a debate on the nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) to be Attorney General. Specifically, Senator McConnell claimed that Senator Warren "impugned the motives and conduct of our colleague from Alabama [Senator Sessions]" by reading historical public statements opposing the 1986 nomination of then-U.S. Attorney Sessions for a federal judge position, written by Coretta Scott King and Senator Ted Kennedy. After a party-line vote of the whole Senate, the Republicans ordered Warren to sit down and not take part in the rest of the debate. The move attracted widespread attention, far more than Warren's original speech had been expected to, and a number of Warren's Senate Democratic colleagues repeated her remarks and quotations over the following day without formal objection from Republicans.
Taiwan Relations Act
The Act was passed by both chambers of the United States Congress and signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 after the breaking of relations between the United States and the Republic of China on Taiwan. Congress rejected the State Department's proposed draft and replaced it with language that has remained in effect since 1979. The Carter Administration signed the Taiwan Relations Act to maintain commercial, cultural, and other relations through the unofficial relations in the form of a nonprofit corporation incorporated under the laws of the District of Columbia—the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT)−without official government representation and without formal diplomatic relations. The Act entered retroactively into force, effective January 1, 1979.
Prorogation Act 1867
The Prorogation Act 1867 (30 & 31 Vict. c.81) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which is still in force in the United Kingdom with amendments.
Wright Amendment
Southwest Airlines was founded after the agreement between the airlines and cities to relocate to DFW and was not a party to the agreement, and felt that their business model would be affected by a long drive to the new airport. Before DFW's opening, Southwest filed suit to remain at Love Field, claiming that no legal basis existed to close the airport to commercial service and that they were not bound by an agreement they did not sign. In 1973, a Federal District Court ruled that, so long as Love Field remained open, the City of Dallas could not preclude Southwest from operating there. The ruling was in the regulated environment where the CAB did not have control of travel within a state, the only service Southwest then offered.
Symington Amendment
The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 was amended by the Symington Amendment (Section 669 of the FAA) in 1976. It banned U.S. economic, and military assistance, and export credits to countries that deliver or receive, acquire or transfer nuclear enrichment technology when they do not comply with IAEA regulations and inspections. This provision, as amended, is now contained in Section 101 of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA).
Equal Rights Amendment
In 1950 and 1953, the ERA was passed by the Senate with a provision known as "the Hayden rider", introduced by Arizona Senator Carl Hayden. The Hayden rider added a sentence to the ERA to keep special protections for women: "The provisions of this article shall not be construed to impair any rights, benefits, or exemptions now or hereafter conferred by law upon persons of the female sex." By allowing women to keep their existing and future special protections, it was expected that the ERA would be more appealing to its opponents. Though opponents were marginally more in favor of the ERA with the Hayden rider, supporters of the original ERA believed it negated the amendment's original purpose—causing the amendment not to be passed in the House.
Minuteman Missile National Historic Site Boundary Modification Act
The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site Boundary Modification Act would amend the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site Establishment Act of 1999 to modify the boundary of the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site in South Dakota by including in the Historic Site a visitor facility and administrative site located on a specified parcel of land that consists of: (1) approximately 25 acres of land within the Buffalo Gap National Grassland in Jackson County, South Dakota, and (2) approximately 3.65 acres of land at the Delta 1 Launch Control Facility for the construction and use of a parking lot and for other administrative uses. The bill would also transfer administrative jurisdiction over such land from the United States Secretary of Agriculture (USDA) to the United States Secretary of the Interior. Finally, it would modify the boundary of the Buffalo Gap National Grassland to exclude the transferred land.
Wright Amendment
After extensive negotiations with the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, the compromise bill passed both Houses of Congress on Friday, September 29, 2006, just before the 109th Congress adjourned for the November elections. Hutchison led the effort to pass the bill in the Senate while Rep. Kay Granger led a bipartisan Texas House coalition to see the bill through to a successful conclusion in the House. President George W. Bush signed the bill into law on October 13, 2006, including the 20-gate cap. Southwest and American airlines then required approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to begin one-stop flights from Love Field to destinations outside the Wright limits.
Amendments to the Voting Rights Act of 1965
Congress revisited the Act in 1975, the year that the Act's special provisions were again set to expire. The debate was less acrimonious than previous debates concerning the Act, reflecting an expanded consensus in Congress that the law remained necessary to remedy continued racial discrimination in voting. Unlike Nixon, President Gerald Ford's administration, which worked to improve relations with African Americans after Nixon's presidency, supported extending the Act without weakening it. After conducting several hearings, Congress passed legislation amending the Act; the Senate approved the amendments by a 77-12 vote, and the House of Representatives by a 346-56 vote. President Ford signed the amendments into law on August 6, 1975.
Equal Rights Amendment
On December 23, 1981, a federal district court, in the case of "Idaho v. Freeman", ruled that the extension of the ERA ratification deadline to June 30, 1982, was not valid and that, ERA had actually expired from state legislative consideration more than two years earlier on the original expiration date of March 22, 1979. On January 25, 1982, however, the U.S. Supreme Court "stayed" the lower court's decision, thus signaling to the legislatures of still-unratified states that they may continue consideration of ERA during their spring 1982 legislative sessions.
Hatch Act of 1939
In 1975, the House passed legislation allowing federal employees to participate in partisan elections and run for office, but the Senate took no action. In 1976, Democrats who controlled Congress had sought to win support by adding protections against the coercion of employees by their superiors and federal employee unions had supported the legislation. It passed the House on a vote of 241 to 164 and the Senate on a vote of 54 to 36. President Ford vetoed the legislation on April 12. He noted that coercion could be too subtle for the law to eliminate and that the Supreme Court had said in 1973 that the Hatch Act had achieved "a delicate balance between fair and effective government and the First Amendment rights of individual employees." President Carter proposed similar legislation in 1977. A proposed amendment to permit federal workers to participate in political campaigns passed the House on a 305 to 112 vote in 1987. In 1990 a similar bill passed the House on a vote of 334 to 87 and the Senate on a vote of 67 to 30. President George H.W. Bush vetoed the legislation, which the House voted to override 327 to 93 and the Senate sustained on a vote of 65 to 35, with 55 Democrats and 10 Republicans voting to override and 35 Republicans supporting the president's veto.
Equal Rights Amendment
According to research by Professor Jules B. Gerard, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, of the 35 legislatures that passed ratification resolutions, 24 of them explicitly referred to the original 1979 deadline.
Criminal remedies for copyright infringement
In 1976, the U.S. Congress carried out, till date, the most recent general revision of the U.S. copyright law and the Copyright Act of 1976 was brought into force. The Copyright Act of 1976 is the copyright law currently in force in the U.S. While this Act continued to provide for criminal remedies to copyright infringement, it removed the crime of aiding or abetting such infringement which had been included in the 1909 statute. The "mens rea" requirement was also amended. Previously, under the 1909 statute, a person was criminally liable for copyright infringement if he or she committed the infringement "wilfully" and "for profit". While "wilful" commission of the infringement continued to remain a requirement for proving "mens rea", the words "for profit" were amended to read as "for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain."
Wright Amendment
In late 2004, Southwest Airlines announced its opposition to the Wright Amendment. Shortly thereafter, the company began trying to garner public support for the repeal of the Wright Amendment by launching a massive public relations campaign. Print media, the Internet, billboards, and TV spots were all used, directing the viewer or reader to visit the Set Love Free website, created by Southwest Airlines. In response, a group opposed to the repeal of the amendment, spearheaded by the DFW Airport Board and American Airlines, launched their own media campaign directing visitors to their Keep DFW Strong site (DFW Airport has even painted advertising on one of its water tanks on the north side of DFW).
Terry Everett
In 2006, he voted against extending the Voting Rights Act of 1965 because of the House's failure to adopt an amendment that would have based the law on current data and extended its coverage to areas beyond the Southeast where voter discrimination is found. Everett's opposition to the VRA extension was detailed in YellowhammerPolitics.com:
"I am disappointed that the House chose not to update the 1965 Voting Rights Act when it reauthorized the measure," Everett argued. "The whole debate was cast as either you're for the Voting Rights Act or you're not. There was no attention paid to the fact that the Act's formulas are out of date and place the Act itself at risk of constitutional challenge. As a result, states like Alabama continue to be punished for wrongs committed 40 years ago and the same criteria will remain in effect for another 25 years, through 2032. The Voting Rights Act remains locked in a time-warp reflecting the voting realities of 1964, not 2006. The very constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act may be in question," he added. "The Supreme Court found more than 30 years ago that the Act's formula, which is based on the 1964, 1968 and 1972 presidential election voting data, was constitutional because it was temporary and narrowly tailored to address a specific problem. Thirty years have since passed calling into question the basis of this ruling."
The 1965 comments made by Everett concerning the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act were used by the U.S. Supreme Court when the Court in 2013 ruled against parts of Voting Rights Act.
Water Commission Act of 1913
The Wright Act of 1887 attempted to put the balance of power back into the hands of small landholders by organizing self-governing irrigation districts. These irrigation districts were intended to act as a special government controlled by the community and having the power to break up large landholdings. The legislation had some measurable effect on average farm size, reflecting some limited breakup of large estates, but at the turn of the century 62% of agricultural land was covered in ownerships exceeding 1,000 acres. Ultimately irrigation districts were inadequate to effectively administer land and water rights because they relied on costly litigation to settle disputes. This along with a panoply of other shortcomings resulted in the Wright Act being viewed by California citizens as a failure.
Marshall-Newman Amendment
On February 13, 2014, U.S. District Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen ruled that the amendment was unconstitutional, and ordered Virginia not to enforce it against same-sex couples. In her opinion, Judge Allen granted a stay pending appeal. Judge Wright Allen confused the Declaration of Independence for the US Constitution when stating on the first page of her opinion: ""Our Constitution declares that 'all men' are created equal. Surely this means all of us."" After considerable comment on this was made by several judicial observers, including South Texas College of Law professor Josh Blackman, Judge Wright Allen issued a second draft stating: ""Our Declaration of Independence recognizes that 'all men' are created equal.""
Symington Amendment
The Glenn Amendment (Section 670) was later adopted in 1977, and provided the same sanctions against countries that acquire or transfer nuclear reprocessing technology or explode or transfer a nuclear device. This provision, as amended, is now contained in Section 102 of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA).
Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Nineteenth Amendment is identical to the Fifteenth Amendment, except that the Nineteenth prohibits the denial of suffrage because of sex and the Fifteenth because of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude".
Colloquially known as the "Anthony Amendment", it was first introduced in the Senate by Republican Senator Aaron A. Sargent of California. Sargent, who had met and befriended Anthony on a train ride in 1872, was a dedicated women's suffrage advocate. He had frequently attempted to insert women's suffrage provisions into unrelated bills, but did not formally introduce a constitutional amendment until January 1878. Stanton and other women testified before the Senate in support of the amendment. The proposal sat in a committee until it was considered by the full Senate and rejected in a 16 to 34 vote in 1887.
Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975
The question of amendment re-emerged during the term of the Turnbull Government amid controversy over the pursuit of university students and a cartoonist under 18C. The Government put the issue to Parliament's human rights committee to examine freedom of speech, including possible amendments to 18C, and changes to the Human Rights Commission's complaints-handling process. In 2016, the Law Reform Commission and the President of the Human Rights Commission Gillian Triggs voiced support for changes to 18C.
Equal Rights Amendment
As the joint resolution was passed on March 22, 1972, this effectively set a March 22, 1979 deadline for the amendment to be ratified by the requisite number of states. However, the 92nd Congress did not incorporate any time limit into the body of the actual text of the proposed amendment, as had been done with a number of other proposed amendments.
Wright system
The Wright system is a refinement of rules associated with proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote (PR-STV) electoral system. Developed and written by Anthony van der Craats, System Analyst and Life member of the Proportional Representation Society of Australia, It was first published as part of a submission and review of Victoria and Australia's electoral system. It is named after Jack Wright, former President of the Proportional Representation Society of Australia)
Samuel F. Wright
In 1982, while continuing in the Naval Reserve, Wright joined the United States Department of Labor (DOL) as an attorney, where he litigated to enforce the Veterans' Reemployment Rights Law (VRR). That 1940 law gives individuals the right to reemployment after military service or training. Wright served on an interagency task force which recommended that Congress revise the VRR. In 1994, Congress passed the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) to make those changes. In April 2008, Wright joined the law firm Tully Rinckey P.L.L.C. as a partner, with the U.S. Navy Veterans Association as a client. He announced his resignation from Tully Rinckey in January, 2009 and was no longer employed by Tully Rinckey by April 2009. He apparently started to work for the Reserve Officers Association as their attorney around that time, but continued to represent the U.S. Naval Veterans Association.
Dallas Love Field
Southwest Airlines added Baltimore, Denver, Las Vegas, Orlando, Washington–National and Chicago on October 13, 2014, the day the repeal went into effect. The first flight to operate outside of the Wright Amendment restricted area was Southwest Airlines flight 1013 to Denver (the flight number of which was named after the date). On November 2, 2014, Southwest added new service to Atlanta, Nashville, Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles, New York-LaGuardia, Phoenix, San Diego, Orange County (California) and Tampa.
History of Southwest Airlines
At a June 15, 2006, joint press conference held by the city of Dallas, the city of Ft. Worth, Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines, the said parties announced a tentative agreement on how the Wright Amendment was to be phased out. Both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives passed Wright-related legislation on September 29, 2006, and it was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 13, 2006. The new law became effective on October 16, 2006, when the FAA Administrator notified Congress that any new aviation operations occurring as a result of the new law could be accommodated without adverse effect to the airspace.
Twenty-seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution
This proposed amendment was largely forgotten until Gregory Watson, an undergraduate student at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote a paper on the subject in 1982 for a political science course. In the paper, Watson argued that the amendment was still "live" and could be ratified. Watson received a "C" grade for his paper from one of the course's teaching assistants. Watson appealed the grade to the course instructor, Sharon Waite, who declined to overrule the teaching assistant. Recalling the paper, Waite stated, "I kind of glanced at it, but I didn't see anything that was particularly outstanding about it and I thought the C was probably fine". Watson responded by starting a new push for ratification with a letter-writing campaign to state legislatures.
Wright Amendment
Critics of the amendment asserted that the restrictions on long-haul travel from Dallas Love Field were anti-competitive. They asked for the "freedom to fly" from Love Field to any destination. They also argued that the restrictions on full use of Love Field artificially inflated fares at the DFW Airport. They believed that eliminating the amendment, and thus allowing any airline to fly long-haul service out of DAL, would allow the so-called "Southwest effect" to occur, where new, inexpensive capacity will increase traffic at both airports (assuming that the market effect of low fares on flights into and out of Love Field will serve to drive down fares on corresponding routes at DFW); these projections are based upon historic results in other air travel markets in which low-fare carriers, most frequently, Southwest, have initiated service. Wright opponents also argued that DFW's main tenant, American Airlines, could charge high prices out of DFW because, with AA controlling in excess of 80% of air carrier traffic at DFW, there is little competition on most routes, a problem that has recently been attributed to Delta Air Lines discontinuing its usage of DFW as a hub.
Civil Service Reform Act of 1978
The original legislation allowing federal employees to organize together and protect rights was the Lloyd–La Follette Act in 1912. However this act only allowed for employees to unionize together and petition the government, but gave them no real bargaining power. The Act was amended by both President Kennedy (Executive Order 10988) and President Nixon (Executive Order 11491), but neither executive orders truly fixed the problems with the original act. By the time President Carter took office in 1977, the Lloyd-LaFollete Act was perceived as entirely obsolete and forced the necessity of legislative reform. With the American public wary of the organization of government following Watergate and the OPEC embargo, President Carter's time in office coincided with a period in which bureaucratic organization was open to "reexamination". Carter ran his campaign promising to "strengthen presidential control over federal services", and once in office created the CSRA. Carter intended for the act to create more bureaucratic officials involved with policy making (rather than administration) and that were more closely politically controlled by the presidency. The CSRA arose from a growing wariness of the United States Government by the general American population. Preceding the Act in 1978 was nearly a decade of major blunders committed by the White House. In short, the federal government had "widely over-promised and woefully underperformed". Incidents like the Watergate scandal coupled with the consensus public opinion of the Vietnam War being a complete failure led the push for reform. The CSRA sought to fix common problems across the public sector such as eliminating manipulation of the merit system without inhibiting the entire structure, how to both invest authority in managers while simultaneously protecting employee from said authority, limit unnecessary or excessive spending, and make the federal work force mirror the American people more closely.
Cooper–Church Amendment
A revised Cooper–Church amendment, Public Law 91-652, passed both houses of Congress on 22 December 1970, and was enacted on 5 January 1971, although this version had limited restrictions on air operations and was attached to the Supplementary Foreign Assistance Act of 1970. By that time, U.S. ground forces had already officially withdrawn from Cambodia, while U.S. bombing missions in Cambodia continued until 1973. The revised bill also included an amendment that repealed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, however this turned out to be insignificant as the Nixon administration cited the President’s constitutional powers as commander-in-chief rather than the resolution as the basis for his war making authority. President Nixon denounced all versions of the amendment, claiming that they harmed the military effort and weakened the American bargaining position at the Paris peace talks.
Wright Amendment
When DFW opened in 1974, every airline except Southwest moved to the new airport. With the drastic reduction in flights, Love Field closed most of its concourses.
Trade Act of 1974
The Trade Act of 1974 created fast track authority for the President to negotiate trade agreements that Congress can approve or disapprove but cannot amend or filibuster. The Act provided the President with tariff and non-tariff trade barrier negotiating authority for the Tokyo Round of multilateral trade negotiations. Gerald Ford was the President at the time. The fast track authority created under the Act was set to expire in 1980, was extended for 8 years in 1979, was renewed again in 1988 until 1993 to allow for the negotiation of the Uruguay Round within the framework of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and was again extended to 16 April 1994, a day after the Uruguay Round concluded in the Marrakech Agreement transforming the GATT into the World Trade Organization (WTO). It was restored in 2002 by the Trade Act of 2002. The Obama Administration sought renewal for fast track authority in 2012.
Wright Amendment
Supporters of the amendment said that DFW Airport is the economic engine of the metroplex area, and did not wish for a competing airport to either take traffic from DFW or drive the prices down there, although they did concede that American's fares are often higher than from other airports. What's more, DFW Airport recently completed construction of a $2.5-billion people mover system to transport passengers between terminal buildings. The DFW Airport Authority stated concerns that the financial burdens caused by such things as the people mover project and the recent pull down of Delta Air Lines' hub would hamper airport profitability and sustainability if a direct competitor to DFW were introduced into the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. A primary concern of many in the DFW area was that American is the largest employer in the North Texas area and many people associated with DFW and American Airlines were reluctant to put any jobs at risk, especially when considering the chronic financial difficulties that modern airlines, other than Southwest, face. Another concern of people in the immediate area of the airport was that of nuisance noise and traffic; the area near Love Field, especially the incorporated "Park Cities" (University Park and Highland Park) and the "Uptown" section of Dallas, has become high-value real estate, and developers and residents feared that increased air and street traffic into the airport, and increased fuel loads for interstate flights requiring higher takeoff throttles and lower rates of ascent, would lessen the desirability and thus land values of the area.
Klayman v. Obama
The judge ruled that a 1979 case, "Smith v. Maryland", which established that phone metadata is not subject to the Fourth Amendment, did not apply to the NSA program as the U.S. Justice Department had argued. He termed the use of telephony metadata in "Smith v. Maryland" as "short-term forward looking capture" and that of NSA as "long-term historical retrospective analysis". Citing the NSA's vast scope and "the evolving role of phones and technology', Judge Leon's opinion pointed out that the Fourth Amendment needs to adapt to the digital age. Judge Leon stayed the ruling, giving the U.S. government six months to appeal.
Scott Olin Wright
On May 24, 1979, Wright was nominated by President Jimmy Carter to a new seat on the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri created by 92 Stat. 1629. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on September 25, 1979, and received his commission the following day. He served as Chief Judge of the district from 1985 to 1990, and assumed senior status on October 5, 1991, serving in that status until his death on July 11, 2016, in Kansas City, Missouri.
Maryon Pittman Allen
In October 1978, she voted for a proposal to allow states that had ratified the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to rescind their ratification. At the time, 35 states had ratified the ERA, three short of the total that would be needed before March 1979 in order to add the ERA to the U.S. Constitution. The proposal to allow states to rescind their ratifications failed to win a majority, and the Senate went on to join the House in voting to give states three additional years to ratify the ERA, but no additional states ratified it, so it failed.
Equal Rights Amendment
Although Article V is silent as to whether a state may rescind a previous ratification of a proposed—but not yet ratified—amendment to the U.S. Constitution, legislators in the following four states nevertheless voted to retract their earlier ratification of the ERA:The action of the 95th Congress in October 1978 to extend the ERA ratification deadline from March 22, 1979, to June 30, 1982, was not universally accepted. On December 23, 1981, a federal district court ruled in "Idaho v. Freeman" that Congress had no power to extend ERA's ratification deadline. On January 25, 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court opted to stay the district court's decision. Taking no further action on the matter until October 4, 1982, the High Court, on that date, ruled in "NOW v. Idaho" and "Carmen v. Idaho" that the controversy had been rendered moot by virtue of the fact that no additional state legislatures ratified ERA between March 22, 1979 and June 30, 1982.
Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment
The Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA) of 1978, sometimes referred to as the Hatch Amendment, is a law intended to protect the rights of pupils and the parents of pupils in programs funded by the United States Department of Education (ED).
Case–Church Amendment
The Case–Church Amendment was legislation attached to a bill funding the U.S. State Department. it was approved by the U.S. Congress in June 1973 that prohibited further U.S. military activity in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia unless the president secured Congressional approval in advance. This ended direct U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War, although the U.S. continued to provide military equipment and economic support to the South Vietnamese government. It is named for its principal co-sponsors, Senators Clifford P. Case (R-NJ) and Frank Church (D-ID). The Amendment was defeated 48–42 in the U.S. Senate in August 1972, but revived after the 1972 election. It was reintroduced on January 26, 1973 and approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on May 13. When it became apparent that the Amendment would pass, President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, lobbied frantically to have the deadline extended. However, under pressure from the extreme scrutiny of Watergate, Republicans relented on support for Vietnam and the amendment passed the United States Congress in June 1973 by a margin of 325–86 in the House, 73–16 in the Senate. Both of these margins for the amendment's passage were greater than the two-thirds majority required to override a presidential veto, and Nixon signed it on July 1, 1973. Although U.S. forces had been withdrawn from South Vietnam earlier pursuant to the Paris Peace Accords, air support and monetary support for Cambodia and Laos continued until August 15, 1973, the deadline set by the Amendment.
Wright County, Missouri
Like most rural areas throughout the Bible Belt in Southwest Missouri, voters in Wright County traditionally adhere to socially and culturally conservative principles which tend to strongly influence their Republican leanings. In 2004, Missourians voted on a constitutional amendment to define marriage as the union between a man and a woman—it overwhelmingly passed Wright County with 86.28 percent of the vote. The initiative passed the state with 71 percent of support from voters as Missouri became the first state to ban same-sex marriage. In 2006, Missourians voted on a constitutional amendment to fund and legalize embryonic stem cell research in the state—it failed in Wright County with 64.84 percent voting against the measure. The initiative narrowly passed the state with 51 percent of support from voters as Missouri became one of the first states in the nation to approve embryonic stem cell research. Despite Wright County’s longstanding tradition of supporting socially conservative platforms, voters in the county have a penchant for advancing populist causes like increasing the minimum wage. In 2006, Missourians voted on a proposition (Proposition B) to increase the minimum wage in the state to $6.50 an hour—it passed Wright County with 70.99 percent of the vote. The proposition strongly passed every single county in Missouri with 78.99 percent voting in favor as the minimum wage was increased to $6.50 an hour in the state. During the same election, voters in five other states also strongly approved increases in the minimum wage.
Wilko v. Swan
Dissenting this time, Blackmun read the conference report differently. Previously the Court had quoted, without comment, language calling the 1975 amendments "the most substantial and significant revision of this country's Federal securities laws since the passage of the Securities Exchange Act in 1934." "[T]he fact that this statement [in the conference committee report] was made in an amendment to the Exchange Act suggests that Congress was aware of the extension of Wilko to [1934 Act] claims," Blackmun argued. "Although the remark does not necessarily signify Congress' endorsement of this extension, in the absence of any prior congressional indication to the contrary, it implies that Congress was not concerned with arresting this trend. Such inaction during a wholesale revision of the securities laws, a revision designed to further investor protection, would argue in favor of Congress' approval of "Wilko" and its extension to [1934 Act] claims."
William Rehnquist
Rehnquist rejected a broad view of the Fourteenth Amendment. In 1952, while serving as a clerk to Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, Rehnquist wrote a memorandum which concludes that ""Plessy v. Ferguson" was right and should be re-affirmed. If the Fourteenth Amendment did not enact Spencer's Social Statics, it just as surely did not enact Myrddahl's American Dilemma" ("An American Dilemma"), by which he meant that the Court should not "read its own sociological views into the Constitution." He believed that the Fourteenth Amendment was meant only as a solution to the problems of slavery, and was misapplied when applied towards abortion rights or prisoner's rights. Rehnquist believed that the Court "had no business reflecting society's changing and expanding values" and argued that this was the domain of the Congress. Rehnquist tried to weave his view of the amendment into his opinion for "Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer", but it was rejected by the other justices. Rehnquist later extended what he said he saw as the scope of the amendment, writing in "Trimble v. Gordon": "except in the area of the law in which the Framers obviously meant it to apply—classifications based on race or on national origin".
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is an international treaty adopted in 1979 by the United Nations General Assembly.
Described as an international bill of rights for women, it was instituted on 3 September 1981 and has been ratified by 189 states. Over fifty countries that have ratified the Convention have done so subject to certain declarations, reservations, and objections, including 38 countries who rejected the enforcement article 29, which addresses means of settlement for disputes concerning the interpretation or application of the Convention. Australia's declaration noted the limitations on central government power resulting from its federal constitutional system. The United States and Palau have signed, but not ratified the treaty. The Holy See, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, and Tonga are not signatories to CEDAW.
Lucy Burns
While trying to address both internal and external attacks, the Congressional Union worked to keep the Anthony amendment afloat in 1914. The Anthony amendment, or Mondell Resolution, was a federal amendment for woman's suffrage and what would ultimately become the nineteenth amendment. Since their split from NAWSA, Ruth Hanna McCormick had become the chairwoman of NAWSA's Congressional Committee. Without consulting the NAWSA Board, she had endorsed the alternative Shafroth-Palmer amendment on their behalf. This posed a huge threat to the work of Burns and Paul because the Shafroth amendment, if passed, would make suffrage a states' rights only issue. While Burns, Paul, and other women from both the Congressional Union and NAWSA met to address this issue, NAWSA ultimately remained in support of the Shafroth amendment, and the Congressional Union continued its campaign for federal suffrage.
USA Freedom Act
In May 2014, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee posted a "Manager's Amendment" on its website. Title VII of the Amendment read "Section 102(b)(1) of the USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 (50 U.S.C. 1805 note) is amended by striking "June 1, 2015" and inserting "December 31, 2017," extending the controversial USA PATRIOT Act through the end of 2017. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has criticized the Patriot Act as unconstitutional, especially when "the private communications of law-abiding American citizens might be intercepted incidentally". James Dempsey, of the CDT, believes that the Patriot Act unnecessarily overlooks the importance of notice under the Fourth Amendment and under a Title III wiretap, while the American Library Association became so concerned that they formed a resolution condemning the USA PATRIOT Act, and which urged members to defend free speech and protect patrons' privacy against the Act.
Resale price maintenance
In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the repeal of Miller-Tydings implied that the Sherman Act's complete ban of vertical price fixing was again effective, and that even the 21st Amendment could not shield California's liquor resale price maintenance regime from the reach of the Sherman Act. "California Liquor Dealers v. Midcal Aluminum", . Thus, from the 1975 enactment of the Consumer Goods Pricing Act to the 2007 "Leegin" decision, resale price maintenance was again no longer legal in the United States.
Wright v. Warner Books, Inc.
Wright v. Warner Books (1991) was a case in which the widow of the author Richard Wright (1908-1960) claimed that his biographer, the poet and writer Margaret Walker (1915-1998), had infringed copyright by using content from some of Wright's unpublished letters and journals. The court took into account the recent ruling in "Salinger v. Random House, Inc." (1987), which had found that a copyright owner had the right to control first publication, but found in favor of Walker after weighing all factors. The case had broad implications by allowing the use library special collections for academic research.
National Woman's Party
Congress passed the ERA Amendment and many states ratified it, but at the last minute in 1982 it was stopped by a coalition of conservatives led by Phyllis Schlafly and never passed. However, in 1964 the NWP did succeed, with the support of conservatives and over the opposition of liberals, blacks and labor unions, to have "sex" added to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, thus achieving some of the goals sought by the NWP.
William M. Wright
In January, 1885 he was nominated for appointment as a second lieutenant in the 2nd Infantry Regiment. One of the final acts of outgoing President Chester A. Arthur, Wright's controversial commission received nationwide publicity; it was supported by fellow New Jersey resident Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, the U.S. Secretary of State, and opposed by U.S. Secretary of War Robert T. Lincoln, who argued that someone who had not passed the program of instruction at West Point should not receive the same reward as those who had. His commission was narrowly confirmed by the U.S. Senate in February, 29 votes to 22, meaning that he received his commission more than a year before his peers in the West Point Class of 1886 graduated and received theirs.
Library science
In 1977, the ALA took a stand for the Equal Rights Amendment. The organization stated that they would no longer hold conferences in states that did not ratify the amendment, with the boycott measure set to take place in 1981. An ERA Task Force was formed in 1979 towards this goal and a sum of $25,000 was allocated towards task force operations in unratified states. At the time, a number of state library associations passed pro-ERA resolutions and formed committees on women in libraries.
Arbitration Act 1979
The Arbitration Act 1979 (c.42) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed arbitration law in England and Wales. Prior to 1979, arbitration law was based on the Arbitration Act 1950, which allowed use of the "Case Stated" procedure and other methods of judicial intervention, which marked English arbitration law as significantly different from that of other jurisdictions. The prior law significantly increased the cost and time required for arbitration, which made England an unpopular jurisdiction to conduct such negotiations in. As a result, while London maintained its traditional position as a centre for arbitration in insurance, admiralty and commodities trading, it failed to attract more modern forms of trade. Following pressure from industry groups, the Lord Chancellor introduced the Arbitration Bill into Parliament, having it passed hours before the dissolution of James Callaghan's government. It was given the Royal Assent on 4 April 1979, and commenced working on 1 August 1979.
Amendments to the Voting Rights Act of 1965
During the nine days of Senate hearings concerning whether to amend the Act, Section 2 was the primary focus—in particular, whether to amend Section 2 to create a "results" test that prohibited any voting law that had a discriminatory effect, irrespective of whether the law was enacted or operated for a discriminatory purpose. President Reagan opposed creating a results test because its impact would be uncertain. Furthermore, some members of Congress, such as Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), raised concerns that a results test would fundamentally alter American democracy by requiring courts to impose proportional representation for protected minority groups as a remedy. To assuage this concern, Senator Robert Dole (R-KS) proposed legislative language explicitly disclaiming that a results test would require proportional representation. This compromise won support from the Senate, the House, and the Reagan Administration. The House passed this version of the bill by a 389-24 vote, and the Senate passed it by an 85-8 vote. President Reagan signed the legislation into law on June 29, 1982. The creation of the Section 2 results test shifted the majority of litigation brought under the Voting Rights Act from claims of Section 5 violations to claims of Section 2 violations.
Equal Rights Amendment
The Republican Party included support of the ERA in its platform beginning in 1940, renewing the plank every four years until 1980. The ERA was strongly opposed by the American Federation of Labor and other labor unions, which feared the amendment would invalidate protective labor legislation for women. Eleanor Roosevelt and most New Dealers also opposed the ERA. They felt that ERA was designed for middle class women, but that working class women needed government protection. They also feared that the ERA would undercut the male-dominated labor unions that were a core component of the New Deal coalition. Most northern Democrats, who aligned themselves with the anti-ERA labor unions, opposed the amendment. The ERA was supported by southern Democrats and almost all Republicans.
Wright v. Houston Independent School District
Wright appealed the decision to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. In 1973 the Appeals Court affirmed the lower court decision dismissing the suit. In June 1974 the United States Supreme Court refused to hear the case, and later lawsuits involving restrictions and impositions on evolution in school curricula reaffirmed the Wright decision.
Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014
Before passing the bill, the House adopted the "Scalise Amendment." The amendment would prohibit "the funding of any provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or Title I and subtitle B of Title II of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010." Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama immediately announced that they would not approve the measure. The Senate removed this provision from the bill before passing their own version and sending the modified bill back to the House.
The final Continuing Appropriations bill sent from the House to the Senate was to delay the employee mandate IRS penalty the same as the previously delayed employer mandate and to not exempt Congress from the ACA.
Blaine Amendment
The state Blaine amendments remain in effect in many states. In 2012, 46% of voters endorsed a measure repealing Florida's Blaine amendment. A 60% margin was required for adoption. Voters have also rejected proposals to repeal their state-level Blaine amendments in New York (1967), Michigan (1970), Oregon (1972), Washington state (1975), Alaska (1976), Massachusetts (1986), and Oklahoma (2016).
Trade Adjustment Assistance
The TAA has recently suffered several amendments. In 2009, the TAA program was expanded by the Trade and Globalization Adjustment Assistance Act (TGAAA) of 2009, which was part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. These benefits were extended through February 2011 by the Omnibus Trade Act of 2010. After that, the program reverted to the pre-expansion provisions under the TAARA of 2002. In October 2011, the Trade Adjustment Assistance Extension Act (TAAEA) of 2011 was signed into law, reinstating most of the benefits included in the TGAAA of 2009. The TAA is authorized through December 31, 2014 but with some modifications. The TAA will operate under its current provisions through December 31, 2013. For the additional year until its expiration on December 31, 2014, the TAA is set to operate under the eligibility and benefit levels established by the TAARA of 2002.
Eleanor Roosevelt
By the 1950s, Roosevelt's international role as spokesperson for women led her to stop publicly criticizing the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), although she never supported it. In the early 1960s, she announced that, due to unionization, she believed the ERA was no longer a threat to women as it once may have been and told supporters that they could have the amendment if they wanted it. In 1961, President Kennedy's undersecretary of labor, Esther Peterson, proposed a new Presidential Commission on the Status of Women. Kennedy appointed Roosevelt to chair the commission, with Peterson as director. This was Roosevelt's last public position. She died just before the commission issued its report. It concluded that female equality was best achieved by recognition of gender differences and needs, and not by an Equal Rights Amendment.
Randy Barnett
On May 13, 2009, Barnett released the intended final draft. Barnett removed amendment 3, which declared the existence of police powers of states. He condensed amendments 4 and 5, which disallowed income and estate taxes respectively, into one amendment now listed as number 1. That made room for two additional amendments not present in the earlier draft. One prevents treaties from enlarging Congress' power in what might be thought of as a Constitutional loophole. Another applies the right to free speech to any medium, including the Internet, and also makes campaign contribution a form of protected free speech.
Wright Amendment
In 2000, Legend Airlines, a new start-up air carrier, attempted to bypass the Wright restrictions by reconfiguring several McDonnell Douglas DC-9-30 jetliners to transport a maximum of 56 passengers. Legend operated scheduled passenger service nonstop from Love Field to Los Angeles (LAX), New York LaGuardia Airport (LGA), Las Vegas (LAS), and Washington, D.C. Dulles Airport (IAD). American Airlines tried several times to force Legend to abandon this concept (and in a competitive move even operated the same type of nonstop service to Chicago O'Hare Airport (ORD), Los Angeles (LAX) and New York LaGuardia Airport (LGA) with Fokker 100 jets configured with 56 seats) and Legend eventually folded in 2001. Many people who supported repealing the Wright Amendment blamed Legend's demise on American Airlines, DFW International Airport, and the city of Fort Worth.
Hyde Amendment
The Hyde Amendment has been reenacted every year since 1976, but exceptions have varied. For example, the 1978 Amendment presented new exceptions for rape survivors and incest cases. However, in 1980, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the original Hyde Amendment language with a 5-4 vote in Harris v. McRae. The majority found that the Hyde Amendment did not violate the Establishment Clause under the First Amendment or due process/equal protection provided by the Fifth Amendment. This case decided the single exception for the Amendment would be in cases where the woman's life is endangered. This decision was upheld from fiscal years 1981-1993. While the Supreme Court came close to reintroducing exceptions for cases of rape or incest in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services of Missouri, President George H.W. Bush succeeded in vetoing the bill despite an attempted House override. This decision left the Amendment with the sole exception of concern being endangered life of the mother. The language was not altered until the Clinton Administration in 1993. At this time, the Hyde Amendment was once again expanded to include exceptions for rape and incest cases.
Equal Rights Amendment
Five state legislatures (Idaho, Kentucky, Nebraska, Tennessee, and South Dakota) voted to revoke their ERA ratifications. Four claim to have rescinded their ratifications before the original March 22, 1979 ratification deadline, while the South Dakota legislature did so by voting to sunset its ratification as of that original deadline. However, it remains a legal question as to whether a state can revoke its ratification of a federal constitutional amendment.
Equal Rights Amendment
Experts agree that Phyllis Schlafly was a key player in the defeat. Political scientist Jane Mansbridge in her history of the ERA argues that the draft issue was the single most powerful argument used by Schlafly and the other opponents to defeat ERA. Mansbridge concluded, "Many people who followed the struggle over the ERA believed rightly in my view that the Amendment would have been ratified by 1975 or 1976 had it not been for Phyllis Schlafly's early and effective effort to organize potential opponents." Legal scholar Joan C. Williams maintained, "ERA was defeated when Schlafly turned it into a war among women over gender roles." Historian Judith Glazer-Raymo asserted:
As moderates, we thought we represented the forces of reason and goodwill but failed to take seriously the power of the family values argument and the single-mindedness of Schlafly and her followers. The ERA's defeat seriously damaged the women's movement, destroying its momentum and its potential to foment social change...Eventually, this resulted in feminist dissatisfaction with the Republican Party, giving the Democrats a new source of strength that when combined with overwhelming minority support, helped elect Bill Clinton to the presidency in 1992 and again in 1996.
Arbitration Act 1979
The Act completely abolished the "Case Stated" procedure and other forms of judicial interference, replacing it with a limited system of appeal to the High Court of Justice and Court of Appeal of England and Wales; it also allowed for exclusion agreements limiting the rights of parties to arbitration to appeal to the courts, and gave arbitrators the ability to enforce interlocutory orders. Academics met the Act with a mixed response; while some praised it for bringing English law more into line with that of other nations, others criticised the wording used as unnecessarily complex and hazy. The Act did, in the eyes of some commentators, lead to a shift in judicial policy away from legal certainty and towards a system focused on speed and finality. Having been repealed in its entirety by Section 107(2) of the Arbitration Act 1996, the Act is no longer in force.
Legend Airlines
In 2006, the former Legend Airlines terminal again became the focus of legal controversy, when the City of Dallas began a process to use eminent domain to seize and then raze the structure in order to comply with provisions concerning the repeal of the Wright Amendment with this law having been signed by President George W. Bush.
Shelby County v. Holder
On January 16, 2014 a bipartisan group of Congress members consisting of Representatives Jim Sensenbrenner and John Conyers and Senator Patrick Leahy introduced H.R.3899/S.R.1945, entitled the "Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014". The bill was introduced to strengthen the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) and vital protections of it following the 2013 Supreme Court's decision in "Shelby County v. Holder". The proposed Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014 consists of five components:As of June 2014 the proposed Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014 was in limbo because there is no widespread support to amend the Voting Rights Act as it was by its re-authorization in 2006 by Congress. Both the House and Senate versions of the bill ultimately died in their respective Judiciary Committees. The House introduced the Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2015 the following year. It was referred to the House Judiciary Committee on the day it was introduced, but didn't move past the committee stage. The Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2015 (H.R. 2867), a similar measure to the Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2015, was introduced on June 24, 2015, but died with the end of the 114th United States Congress. The most recent legislative attempt, the Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2017 (H.R. 3239), was introduced on July 13, 2017, and again referred to the House Judiciary Committee.
Bob Barr
Barr advocated complete federal prohibition of medical marijuana. In 1998, he successfully blocked implementation of Initiative 59 – the "Legalization of Marijuana for Medical Treatment Initiative of 1998" – which would have legalized medical marijuana in Washington, D.C. The "Barr Amendment" to the 1999 Omnibus spending bill not only blocked implementation of Initiative 59, but also prohibited the vote tally from even being released. Nearly a year passed before a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union eventually revealed the initiative had received 69 percent of the vote. In response to the judge's ruling, Barr simply attached another "Barr Amendment" to the 2000 Omnibus spending bill that overturned Initiative 59 outright. The Barr Amendment also prohibited future laws that would "decrease the penalties for marijuana or other Schedule I drugs" in Washington, D.C. This preemptively blocked future attempts by Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) to reform marijuana laws in DC via the initiative process. In March 2002, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan struck down this portion of the Barr Amendment as being an unconstitutional restriction on free speech. Barr's response to the ruling was defiant:
The federal government later prevailed on appeal, reinstating the Barr Amendment just in time to thwart MPP's initiative 63 – "The Medical Marijuana Initiative of 2002" – which had already qualified for the November 2002 ballot. In 2009, both the United States Senate and House of Representatives voted to lift the ban against a medical marijuana initiative, effectively overturning the Barr Amendment.
Jennings Randolph
On August 26, 1970, the fiftieth anniversary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution giving women the right to vote, Randolph attracted widespread media coverage for negative comments he made concerning the Women's Liberation Movement. Feminists had organized a nationwide Women's Strike for Equality that day, and presented the sympathetic Senate leadership with a petition for the Equal Rights Amendment. Randolph derided the protesters as "braless bubbleheads" and that the equal rights activists claimed they did not speak for women, citing those more radical feminists that supported, as he put it, the "right to unabridged abortions". Randolph would later admit that his bubblehead comment was "perhaps ill-chosen" and went on to support the Equal Rights Amendment. In 1972, when the amendment passed the Senate, Randolph was a co-sponsor.
Jim Wright
In the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, Jim Wright is infamous for the Wright Amendment, a contentious law he sponsored that restricted air travel from Dallas's secondary airport, Love Field. Passed in 1979, the Wright Amendment was originally designed to protect the then-fledgling Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. The Amendment allows non-stop flights originating from or bound to any commercial airport within of the DFW Airport Control Tower to serve only states bordering Texas. It was the compromise agreed to with Southwest Airlines to expand their territory beyond Texas. This requires any flight going to or coming from a destination within that radius (Dallas Love Field and the now-defunct Greater Southwest International Airport in Fort Worth were the only airports affected) to land in a contiguous (bordering) state before continuing on to its destination. This effectively limited traffic from Love Field and GSIA to small, regional airlines (and provided the springboard for the later success of Southwest Airlines, which initially flew only within Texas) who were largely unable to compete with DFW Airport as a result. While the Amendment was welcomed at first, there were increasing doubts about its necessity as DFW grew into one of the three largest airports in the world. Many saw it as a boondoggle to benefit one particular group. Others saw it as an unlawful restraint of trade imposed against the two affected airports, and no others, in spite of the fact that public officials of Dallas and Ft Worth had agreed to the restrictions (Virginia McGuire, daughter of James C. Wright, direct conversation). However, the largest opposition came increasingly from people who simply felt that the amendment had outlived its usefulness and was also an unwarranted intrusion on the free markets of the deregulated airline industry. In 2006 Congress passed the Wright Amendment Reform Act of 2006, which repealed the Wright Amendment in stages; the last restrictions on travel from Love Field were lifted on October 13, 2014. 
Wright strongly supported the Superconducting Super Collider project in Waxahachie in Ellis County, but the work was halted in 1993.
In 1986 he was elected Speaker of the House, succeeding Tip O'Neill when the latter retired the following January.
Equal Rights Amendment
On March 8, 2011, the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day, Representative Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) introduced legislation (H.J. Res. 47) to remove the congressionally imposed deadline for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. The resolution had 56 cosponsors. The resolution was referred to the Subcommittee on the Constitution by the House Committee on the Judiciary. The Subcommittee failed to vote on the resolution, and as such, the resolution died in subcommittee when the 112th Congress ended in January of 2013. On March 22, 2012, the 40th anniversary of the ERA's congressional approval, Senator Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Maryland) introduced (S.J. Res. 39) which is worded with slight differences from Representative Baldwin's (H.J. Res. 47). Senator Cardin was joined by seventeen other Senators who cosponsored the Senate Joint Resolution. The resolution was referred to Senate Committee on the Judiciary, where a vote on it was never brought. The resolution, therefore, died in committee when the 112th Congress ended in January, 2013.
Berry Amendment
The Berry Amendment was named for Ellis Yarnal Berry, who was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1951 - 1971. During his first term in congress, Berry introduced an amendment to the Buy American Act to expand the law to cover all clothing, cotton, and wool. Ever since 1952 any restrictions in the annual Defense Appropriation Acts became known as Berry Amendments. The Berry Amendment became permanent in 1994 by section 8005 of Public Law (Pub. L.) 103–139.
Richard L. Wright
After completing his work on the White House energy task force, he joined the staff of the newly created Department of Energy and Secretary James R. Schlesinger, working on the National Energy Act legislative package that the President had sent to Congress. He was appointed Director of Congressional Affairs. When Charles Duncan, Jr. became Secretary he was named Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs, a position he held until the end the Carter presidency. In June, 1980 President Carter signed the Energy Security Act into law.
Equal Rights Amendment
As a concession to feminists, Kennedy appointed a blue-ribbon commission on women, the President's Commission on the Status of Women, to investigate the problem of sex discrimination in the United States. The commission was chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt who opposed the ERA but no longer spoke against it publicly. In the early 1960s, Eleanor Roosevelt announced that, due to unionization, she believed the ERA was no longer a threat to women as it once may have been and told supporters that, as far as she was concerned, they could have the amendment if they wanted it. However, she never went so far as to endorse the ERA. The commission that she chaired reported (after her death) that no ERA was needed. The commission did, though, help win passage of the Equal Pay Act of 1963 which banned sex discrimination in wages in a number of professions (it would later be amended in the early 1970s to include the professions that it initially excluded) and secured an executive order from Kennedy eliminating sex discrimination in the civil service. The commission, composed largely of anti-ERA feminists with ties to labor, proposed remedies to the widespread sex discrimination it unearthed and in its 1963 final report held that on the issue of equality "a constitutional amendment need not now be sought".
Phil Gramm
In 1990, Gramm failed in an effort to amend the Iraq International Law Compliance Act of 1990. An earlier amendment to the act, the D'Amato Amendment, prohibited the US from selling arms or extending any sort of financial assistance to Iraq unless the President could prove Iraq was in "substantial compliance" with the provisions of a number of human rights conventions, including the Genocide Convention. After reading the D'Amato Amendment, Gramm introduced his own amendment to counter the human rights sanctions in the D'Amato Amendment. Gramm's amendment would have allowed the George Bush administration to waive the terms of the D'Amato Amendment if it found that sanctions against Iraq hurt US businesses and farms more than they hurt Iraq. In the end, the bill passed the Senate without Gramm's amendment only a week before Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.
Liberal feminism
Three years after women won the right to vote, the Equal Right Amendment (ERA) was introduced in Congress by Senator Curtis and Representative Anthony, both Republicans. This amendment stated that civil rights cannot be denied on the basis of one's sex. It was authored by Alice Paul, head of the National Women's Party, who led the suffrage campaign. Through the efforts of Alice Paul, the Amendment was introduced into each session of the United States Congress. But it was buried in committee in both Houses of Congress. In 1946, it was narrowly defeated by the full Senate, 38–35. In February 1970 twenty NOW leaders disrupted the hearings of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments, demanding the ERA be heard by the full Congress. In May of that year, the Senate Subcommittee began hearings on the ERA under Senator Birch Bayh. In June, the ERA finally left the House Judiciary Committee due to a discharge petition filed by Representative Martha Griffiths. In March 1972, the ERA was approved by the full Senate without changes, 84–8. Senator Sam Ervin and Representative Emanuel Celler succeeded in setting an arbitrary time limit of seven years for ratification. The ERA went to individual states to be ratified by the state legislatures. The ERA first attempted to be passed after the passing of the nineteenth amendment in 1920 by the feminists in the National Woman's Party, but it got little attention at the time.
Hugo Black
However, during the 1960s, the Court under Chief Justice Warren took the process much further, making almost all guarantees of the Bill of Rights binding upon the states. Thus, although the Court failed to accept Black's theory of total incorporation, the end result of its jurisprudence is very close to what Black advocated. Today, the only parts of the first eight amendments that have not been extended to the states are the Third and Seventh Amendments, the grand jury clause of the Fifth Amendment, the Eighth Amendment's protection against excessive bail, and the guarantee of the Sixth Amendment, as interpreted, that criminal juries be composed of 12 members and be unanimous in their verdicts.
Mae Street Kidd
Representative Kidd also led the campaign for Kentucky to ratify the United States Constitution's 13th Amendment (abolishing slavery), 14th Amendment (defining citizenship) and 15th Amendment (granting all men the right to vote regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude). Known collectively as the "Reconstruction Amendments," all three of those constitutional amendments had become law shortly after the conclusion of the Civil War when a sufficient number of lawmakers in other states had ratified them. Representative Kidd offered and secured adoption of a resolution in 1976 to post-ratify the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments.
Export Administration Act of 1979
The Export Administration Act (EAA) of 1979 (P.L. 96-72) provided legal authority to the President to control U.S. exports for reasons of national security, foreign policy, and/or short supply. The act was in force from 1979 to 1994, with a lapse in 1984–85. During this lapse, and upon the law's expiration, the authority of export regulations was continued by executive authority. Presidents Reagan and Clinton each declared that the expiration created an emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and reauthorized all regulations on that basis.
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
The government initiated efforts in late 2016 and throughout 2017 to persuade Congress to extend the surveillance authority in Title VII of the Act, which (pursuant to the 2008 and 2012 amendments noted above) was slated to expire on December 31, 2017. Tom Cotton, a Republican Senator from Arkansas, introduced a bill to permanently extend the provisions of Title VII with no changes, but the bill did not advance, as many in Congress were seeking reforms to address privacy concerns. The United States House Committee on the Judiciary introduced an extension bill with significant proposed reforms, as did the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, but ultimately a version of the extension with less significant reforms was advanced by United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and in effect that version, through a complex series of amendments was ultimately enacted into law . The Senate agreed to a House amendment on January 18, 2018 and the President signed the legislation, the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017 (Public Law 115-118), into law on January 19, 2018.
Bricker Amendment
Eisenhower worked to prevent a vote, telling Republican Senators that he agreed that President Roosevelt had done things he would not have done, but that the Amendment would not have prevented the Yalta Agreement. By the time the Senate finally voted on the Bricker Amendment on February 26, thirteen of the nineteen Democrats who had co-sponsored it had withdrawn their support, at the urging of Senators Johnson and George. The original version of S.J. Res. 1 failed 42–50. By a 61-30 vote, the Senate agreed to substitute George's language for Bricker's— if only ninety-one senators voted, sixty-one was the necessary two-thirds vote for final approval.
Robert Wright Jr.
On May 6, 2009, Judge Gladys Kessler issued a ruling allowing Wright to publish his manuscript. Wright is focused on fighting the system of prepublication review and censorship of government employee writings.
Legend Airlines
Legend Airlines spent most of its existence locked in a legal battle with American Airlines. American Airlines sued in federal court to prevent Legend Airlines from operating out of Love Field under the provisions of the Wright Amendment. Each time Legend's right to fly was upheld by a court, American immediately appealed the decision to a higher court. The constant legal struggle was a serious drain on the fledgling company's financial resources, and would be a major factor in the airline's eventual failure.
Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/American Express Inc.
Petitioners were wrong to claim that a sentence in a report on the 1975 amendments indicated Congressional support of "Wilko". "Congress never said in this single sentence in 1975 what it thought that the "Wilko" law was" and "McMahon" had already rejected that argument. Nor had Congress, in securities law amendments since "McMahon", enacted any affecting arbitration.
Redwood Act (1978)
The Redwood Act ("also" Redwood amendment) is a 1978 amendment to the US National Park Service General Authorities Act of 1970. The amendment is particularly notable for clarifying and supplementing the 1970 act and the National Park Service Organic Act of 1916 with the following two important sentences as the second and third to the General Authorities Act:
Wright Amendment
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison responded to the memorandum by stating "They [Justice] are not taking a position at all on the legislation... That memo did not go through the channels. And it probably was one person's view, but it's not the Justice Department's."
Eugene Allen Wright
Wright was nominated by President Richard Nixon on June 23, 1969, to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, to a new seat created by 82 Stat. 184. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on September 12, 1969, and received his commission on September 15, 1969. He assumed senior status on September 15, 1983. Wright served in that capacity until his death on September 3, 2002, in Seattle.
Wright Amendment
Even though non-stop flights were restricted until October 16, 2014, Southwest Airlines announced on October 17, 2006 that it would begin direct flight (same plane with one stop) and connecting service between Love Field and 25 destinations outside the Wright zone on October 19, 2006. American Airlines also made indirect connecting travel between Love Field and locations outside the Wright zone available by October 18, 2006.
Bruce M. Wright
I have never changed my mind about the Eighth Amendment. To say that I would've done things differently means to me I would have been a good boy, kept my mouth shut and availed myself of the benefits of the system. I don't think I can do that. I don't think I could ever do that.
Equal Rights Amendment
In 1978, as the original 1979 deadline approached, the 95th Congress adopted House Joint Resolution No. 638 (H. J. Res. 638), by Representative Elizabeth Holtzman of New York, which purported to extend the ERA's ratification deadline to June 30, 1982. H. J. Res. 638 received less than two-thirds of the vote (a simple majority, not a supermajority) in both the House of Representatives and the Senate; for that reason, ERA supporters deemed it necessary that H. J. Res. 638 be transmitted to then-President Jimmy Carter for signature as a safety precaution. Carter signed the joint resolution, although he noted, on strictly procedural grounds, the irregularity of his doing so. During this disputed extension of slightly more than three years, no additional states ratified or rescinded.
The purported extension of ERA's ratification deadline was vigorously contested in 1978 as scholars were divided as to whether Congress actually has authority to revise a previously agreed-to deadline for the states to act upon a Federal constitutional amendment. On June 18, 1980, a resolution in the Illinois House of Representatives resulted in a vote of 102–71 in favor, but Illinois' internal parliamentary rules required a three-fifths majority on constitutional amendments and so the measure failed by five votes. In 1982, seven female ERA supporters went on a fast and seventeen chained themselves to the entrance of the Illinois Senate chamber. The closest that the ERA came to gaining an additional ratification between the original deadline of March 22, 1979 and the revised June 30, 1982, expiration date was when it was approved by the Florida House of Representatives on June 21, 1982. In the final week before the revised deadline, that ratifying resolution, however, was defeated in the Florida Senate by a vote of 16 yeas and 22 nays. Even if Florida had ratified the ERA, the proposed amendment would still have fallen short of the required 38.
Arbitration Act 1979
David Shenton and Gordon Toland concluded that the Act brought judicial oversight in English law into compliance with that of other nations, saying that it is "broadly comparable to the provisions...to be found in Swedish, Swiss and French law". Smedresman, however, argued that it would do little to help attract new arbitration and would in fact drive it away, saying that "the vagueness of the statutory language, combined with the rather hazy policy considerations behind the Act, make confusion and litigation likely". David Hacking, who helped promote the Act, says that it "was not drafted with the elegance of the 1996 Arbitration Act. In the style of the Parliamentary Draftsmen of that time, many of its provisions were drafted with a complexity which was happily avoided in the 1996 Act", and criticises the failure to achieve more than minor reform of existing law. However, he does note that the Act led to a shift in judicial policy, with future judgments to be issued with regards "to the need for finality...the striving for legal accuracy may be said to have been overtaken by commercial expediency". Jaffe agrees, writing in the journal "Arbitration" that "[i]t is clear that with the passage of the 1979 Act...there has been a distinct and noticeable shift of emphasis from legal certainty to finality for arbitral awards". The Act is no longer in force, having been repealed in its entirety by Section 107(2) of the Arbitration Act 1996.
Age of consent reform
These reforms have been controversial. In Texas, Governor Rick Perry vetoed Romeo and Juliet laws that had been passed by the legislature in 2009, but signed one in 2011 to go into effect in September of that year. A 2011 Romeo and Juliet bill failed to pass in the Illinois legislature. In the State v. Limon case, Kansas's Romeo and Juliet law was found to be unconstitutional because it excluded same-sex sexual conduct.
Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Act 2017
The committee stage was where amendments to the bill were proposed. The committee stage was held on 28 and 29 November. Several amendments to the bill were proposed, though only one package of technical amendments making minor changes to other legislation, proposed by the Attorney-General George Brandis, was approved by the Senate. Following Brandis' amendments being agreed to, Senators Fawcett and Paterson introduced five separate tranches of amendments. The amendments went to a range of issues, including inserting a different definition of "marriage" in the Act, extending legal protections to individuals who hold a "traditional marriage belief", adding a "no-detriments clause" for people who hold a traditional view of marriage (which would supersede state anti-discrimination laws) and legislating for the right of parents to remove their children from classes relating to marriage, among other areas. All of Fawcett and Paterson's amendments were rejected by the Senate. Subsequently, Senator Brandis and Canavan jointly moved two amendments (one to insert the words "nothing in this Act limits the right of any person...to manifest [one's] religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching" and the other to extend a right of conscientious objection to civil celebrants). The Labor Party opposed the first amendment on the basis that it "cherry-picked" elements of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Both sets of amendments proposed by Brandis and Canavan were rejected by the Senate.
Bill of Rights 1689
The Bill of Rights remains in statute and continues to be cited in legal proceedings in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms, particularly Article 9 on parliamentary freedom of speech. Following the Perth Agreement in 2011, legislation amending the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement 1701 came into effect across the Commonwealth realms on 26 March 2015 which changed the laws of succession to the British throne.