Foundations of Constitutional Power

This unit examines how the Constitution allocates and limits government authority across branches and between federal and state levels, and how those limits protect individual rights in areas such as procedure, property, and equal treatment. Students will study doctrines of separation of powers, federalism, due process, property rights (including contracts and firearms), and equal protection to prepare for case analysis and applied legal reasoning in later units.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze constitutional separation-of-powers issues by comparing examples of inter-branch conflict and identifying constitutional mechanisms for conflict resolution and cooperation
• Apply federalism principles and relevant constitutional clauses and precedents to determine whether authority resides with federal or state government in contextualized scenarios
• Demonstrate understanding of procedural and substantive due process and property protections by explaining their elements and applying them to fact patterns involving land, contracts, and firearms
• Evaluate government discrimination claims by distinguishing standards of review (rational basis, intermediate scrutiny, strict scrutiny) and resolving hypothetical equal protection and anti-discrimination situations