Few Americans know much about the First Amendment; survey shows only 3% can name all 5 protections

In 2006, 22% of polled Americans could name all 5
Simpsons family members. (Image via NCC)

Americans' understanding of the First Amendment is not getting better with time. In 2006, the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum commissioned a poll, which revealed that many Americans knew more about the Simpsons than the First Amendment, reports the National Constitution Center. "The phone survey found that only 28% of Americans could name more than one of the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution's First Amendment, but more than half of Americans could name at least two members of the fictional Simpsons family. In addition, 22% of Americans could name all five Simpsons family members, while just 11% of folks knew that freedom of the press was guaranteed under the First Amendment."

Fast forward 17 years: Americans have a breadth of information at their fingertips that 2006 did not offer. Do we know more about the First Amendment? "Survey says: No," reports Sean Stevens of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. "In a recent AmeriSpeak panel conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, FIRE asked 1,140 Americans if they could name any of the specific rights protected by the First Amendment. . . . Almost a third of Americans could not name a single enumerated right protected by the First Amendment, and another 40% could name only one — usually freedom of speech. Among Americans who named one or more enumerated rights, roughly two-thirds named freedom of speech, about a quarter (26%) named freedom of religion, 20% named the right to assemble, 15% named freedom of the press, and 8% named the right to petition. Only 3% of Americans could name all five and, on average, could name 1.33 First Amendment rights."

Fire's survey also revealed that older Americans and citizens with a bachelor's degree had more First Amendment knowledge. But what can be done to help the rest of the country? "Americans cannot protect, preserve, and exercise their rights if they don't know what those rights are," Stevens writes. "But, there exists a ray of hope, as the Freedom Forum has also consistently found that high school students who have taken classes that include content about the First Amendment are more supportive of free speech rights. This suggests that a culture of free speech can be fostered by increasing knowledge of the First Amendment."

FIRE image

To help support First Amendment learning, FIRE offers a variety of free courses on the First Amendment, including "The History of Free Speech," "Can I Publish This?" and "The Case for Radically Free Speech," Steven reports. "We provide college orientation materials and maintain a syllabus database of courses that focus on freedom of expression. We also provide teaching resources to help K-12 teachers enrich and supplement their existing instruction on the First Amendment. We even send out complementary copies of our comic book, "Finding Your Voice," which shows teens the empowering effects of knowing and using their First Amendment rights."

Feinstein's death raises the question of how vacant Senate seats are filled. The answer depends on where you live.

Dianne Feinstein in 1950
(Photo by Underwood Archives,
Getty Images via Conversation)

The death of California's longtime senator, Dianne Feinstein, left a vacancy in the U.S. Senate and a question in many Americans' minds: How are Senate seats filled when a person dies while in office? The short answer is it depends on where you live because individual states establish their own rules.

The 17th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution outlines the basics: "When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct," explains Gibbs Knotts for The Conversation, a platform for journalism by academics.

That usually means the state's governor will pick the predecessor. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom has already named his pick, Laphonza Butler, who will remain in office until the 2024 election. However, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin "do not allow governors to make temporary appointments," Knotts reports. "Those states only fill U.S. Senate vacancies by special election, but laws specify time periods in most states."

How long appointments last also depends on state law. "If a person appointed to the seat by the governor then wins a special election or a contest scheduled alongside statewide elections, they will serve the remainder of the vacating senator's term," Knotts explains. "Otherwise, if someone else wins the special election, they get to serve out the vacating senator's term."

There are rules and processes appointing governors must follow. "In 10 gubernatorial appointment states, U.S. senators must be from the same party as the prior incumbent. Arizona, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maryland, Montana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming have this restriction," Knotts notes. "In Utah, the governor is required to select from a list of three candidates submitted by the party of the U.S. senator being replaced. In the rest of the states, the governor has the power to appoint a successor, regardless of party, including in California."

State legislatures have some say in the process. Knotts adds, "Most notably, legislators establish the appointment procedures and set the general rules about when an election must occur. If they don't like the process, they have the power to change it."

Tennessee sues federal government over refugee resettlement, citing 10th Amendment

Tennessee is the nation's first state "to sue the federal government over refugee resettlement on the grounds of the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution," Joel Ebert reports for The Tennessean. A suit filed Monday claims the feds have violated the amendment "that says the federal government possesses only the powers delegated to it by the U.S. Constitution and that all other powers are reserved for the states."

"Other states have sued the federal government over refugee resettlement but on different legal grounds," Ebert writes. "The charge that the federal government is not complying with the Refugee Act of 1980, based on the 10th Amendment, makes Tennessee's lawsuit the first of its kind."

"The lawsuit argues that the federal government has unduly forced states to pay for the refugee resettlement program," Ebert writes. "The federal refugee act was designed to create a permanent procedure for the admission of refugees into the U.S. The lawsuit asks the court to force the federal government to stop resettling refugees in Tennessee until all costs associated with the settlement are incurred by the federal government."

Cops call growing movement of rural, white, armed citizens who distrust government 'Vanilla ISIS'

A growing movement of "largely white and rural" residents are taking up arms to defend themselves against a government they distrust, Kevin Sullivan reports for The Washington Post. The groups, which refer to themselves as patriots, demand "that the federal government adhere to the Constitution and stop what they see as systematic abuse of land rights, gun rights, freedom of speech and other liberties." BJ Soper, leader of Central Oregon Constitutional Guard, a group of about 30 started two years ago, told Sullivan, “It doesn’t say in our Constitution that you can’t stand up and defend yourself. We’ve let the government step over the line and rule us, and that was never the intent of this country.” (Post photo by Matt McClain: Soper)

Law enforcement officials say the groups are "dangerous, delusional and sometimes violent, and they say that their numbers are growing amid a wave of anger at the government that has been gaining strength since 2008, a surge that coincided with the election of the first black U.S. president and a crippling economic recession," Sullivan writes. "Law enforcement officials and the watchdog groups that track the self-styled 'patriot' groups call them anti-government extremists, militias, armed militants or even domestic terrorists." Some even jokingly call them “Y’all Qaeda” or “Vanilla ISIS.”

There are currently about 1,000 such groups, up from 150 in 2008, said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors extremism. "Potok and other analysts, including law enforcement officials who track the groups, said their supporters number in the hundreds of thousands, counting people who signal their support in more passive ways, such as following the groups on social media," Sullivan reports. "The Facebook page of the Oath Keepers, a group of former members of police forces and the military, for example, has more than 525,000 'likes.'"

"Much of the movement traces its roots to the deadly 1990s confrontations between civilians and federal agents at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and in Waco, Tex., that resulted in the deaths of as many as 90," Sullivan writes. "Timothy Mc­Veigh cited both events before he was executed for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people, and he said he had deliberately chosen a building housing federal government agencies. Now a 'second wave' is spreading across the country, especially in the West, fueled by the internet and social media." (Read more)

Supreme Court ruling on wetlands and property taking is 'a legal blow to sustainable development'

Rules that a Florida water management district "used to protect wetlands from development interfered with a Central Florida landowner’s constitutional rights," the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled in a 5-4 vote, reversing a Florida Supreme Court ruling. Steve Patterson reports for the Florida Times-Union, "The ruling could shift standards nationally about how governments can regulate development, and it was cheered by property-rights advocates." (Legal Planet photo: The property at issue)

When Coy Koontz "sought to develop 3.7 acres as commercial land beside the highway in 1994, the district asked for a conservation easement on the rest of the family’s land, to which he agreed," Patterson writes. "It also wanted him to pay for environmental work done elsewhere, which he refused. The district said it had to ask for off-site work, because state rules required creating 10 acres of wetlands for every wetland acre that would be filled in. In its ruling, the Supreme Court said the Florida decision "violates the Fifth Amendment, which protects private property from being seized for public use without compensation." Koontz's son, Coy Koontz Jr. now owns the land, and he brought the suit against the St. Johns River Water Management District. (Read more)

In a New York Times op-ed piece, Vermont Law School Professor John D. Echeverria writes that the decision "will result in long-lasting harm to America’s communities. That’s because the ruling creates a perverse incentive for municipal governments to reject applications from developers rather than attempt to negotiate project designs that might advance both public and private goals — and it makes it hard for  communities to get property owners to pay to mitigate any environmental damage they may cause."

Echeverria notes Justice Elena Kagan's dissent, saying the decision will encourage local officials to avoid any discussion with developers related to permit conditions that, in the end, might have let both sides find common ground on building projects that are good for the community and environmentally sound. Rather than risk a lawsuit through an attempt at compromise, many municipalities will simply reject development applications outright — or, worse, accept development plans they shouldn’t."

"In the wake of this under-the-radar ruling, the cost of protecting a community from a harmful building project now lies not with the developer but with the local residents and taxpayers," Echeverria opines.. "It’s hard to fathom that the framers of the Constitution would call this either fairness or justice." (Read more)

50 years after right established, not all defendants get lawyer, and they're scanter in rural areas

Fifty years ago today the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, as part of Gideon vs. Wainwright, that everyone accused of a serious crime has a constitutional right to a lawyer, whether they can afford it or not. In honor of the anniversary of the landmark decision, many news organizations looked into how the judicial system is living up to the principle, and found that many defendants are standing trial without the services of a lawyer.

Guilty pleas account for about 95 percent of all criminal convictions, writes Stephen B. Bright and Sia Sanneh of the Los Angeles Times. In many courts, poor people are processed through the courts without lawyers or moments after speaking for a few minutes with lawyers they just met and will never see again.

Most states have little incentive to provide competent lawyers to represent the people they are trying to convict, fine, imprison or execute, the Times reports. Many focus on minimizing costs, awarding the defense of poor people to the lowest bidder, compensating lawyers at meager rates and underfunding public defender programs. This facilitates pleas, speeds up cases and heightens the chances of conviction for anyone accused of a crime.

The Legal Services Corporation, the federally financed organization that provides lawyers to the poor in civil matters, says there are more than 60 million Americans — 35 percent more than in 2005 — who qualify for its services, writes Ethan Bronner of the New York Times. But it calculates that 80 percent of the legal needs of the poor go unmet. In state after state, according to a survey of trial judges, more people are now representing themselves in court and they are failing to present necessary evidence, committing procedural errors and poorly examining witnesses, all while new lawyers remain unemployed.

Georgia offers a case study on the mismatch between lawyers and clients at a time when each needs the other, Bronner notes. According to the Legal Services Corp., 70 percent of the state’s lawyers are in the Atlanta area, while 70 percent of the poor live outside it. There are six counties without a lawyer and dozens with only two or three.

The Florida Supreme Court is considering a limit to its caseload, writes Rick Hampson of USA Today. Last year, the Missouri Supreme Court authorized public defenders with unmanageable caseloads to decline new cases, and the American Bar Association urged states and counties not to fire public defenders who do. The problem is money. An explosion in the number of criminal cases has overwhelmed the indigent defense system, which represents about 80 percent of all accused.

Nonpartisan group provides lesson plans for Constitution Day

Friday Sept. 17 is Constitution Day, and free teaching materials are available for educators across the country looking to plan lessons around the event. National nonpartisan group 1 for All, a coalition of educators, journalists, librarians, artists and many others, has developed creative lesson plans for grades K-12, accessible here. The campaign features ads that celebrate freedom in America and the ways "we exercise those freedoms in our daily lives. ... The First Amendment gives us freedom of speech, but it also provides freedom to tweet. It protects political speeches, but it also guarantees our right to sing, dance and perform."

Additional educational material from the Newseum can be accessed here. "Lessons may be used in history and government, civics, language arts and journalism, art and debate classes. They may be used in sections or in their entirety," 1 for All writes. "Many of these lesson plans indicate an overall goal, offer suggestions on how to teach the lesson and list additional resources and enrichment activities." (Read more)

Most students don't know today is Constitution Day, study reveals

According to a study sponsored by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, a majority of high school students do not know about Constitution Day, the anniversary of the document's adoption and the day American students are legally required to learn about it, The Associated Press reports. Today is Constitution Day, the anniversary of the completion of the document in 1787.

The study reports that 51 percent of high school students did not know about Constitution Day, and just one in 10 remembered how his high school observed the day last year. Led by Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., Congress created the day in 2004 with a law requiring every school that receives federal money to teach its students about the Constitution on or around Sept. 17.

Eric Newton, Knight Foundation journalism-program vice president, told AP he worries that today's students lack an understanding of their nation's democracy. "We're concerned that teaching to the test and the emphasis on math and science is hurting the American civics education," he said.

AP reports that the study also found that 68 percent of students had taken a class related to the First Amendment, up from the with 58 percent who said they had in 2004. For the full report, go here.