Lesson 2: Constitutional Law Foundations & MBE Strategy
Master fundamental Constitutional Law principles tested on the MBE, including federalism, separation of powers, and individual rights, with proven test-taking strategies.
Lesson 2: Constitutional Law Foundations & MBE Strategy ⚖️
Revision note (July 2026): Corrected for five errors of law or arithmetic, one missing doctrine in a worked example, and several strategy points. The most significant change is to the removal-power material — Humphrey's Executor was overruled on June 29, 2026, and the prior draft stated the pre-Slaughter rule as settled law. See §4.
Introduction 🏛️
Welcome to your second step toward bar exam mastery. In Lesson 1 you learned the foundational skills of legal reasoning — IRAC, issue spotting, and rule application. Now we'll apply those skills to Constitutional Law.
Constitutional Law is one of the seven subjects on the Multistate Bar Examination. The MBE's 175 scored questions are distributed evenly, 25 per subject, so Constitutional Law is 25 scored questions — about 14.3% of your scored MBE performance. (The exam contains 200 questions; the extra 25 are unscored pretest items that cannot be identified during the exam.) More importantly, Constitutional Law principles permeate nearly every other subject you'll study, from Criminal Procedure to Property.
📌 If you are sitting a NextGen administration: Constitutional Law remains one of the foundational concepts tested, so this material transfers. The 25-questions-per-subject structure described above is specific to the legacy MBE.
💡 Tip: Constitutional Law questions often seem political or philosophical, but the exam tests black-letter law — established legal principles, not your views on policy. NCBE states that each MBE question is designed to be answered according to generally accepted fundamental legal principles unless the question says otherwise.
Core Concepts: The Constitutional Framework 📜
1. The Structure of Constitutional Analysis
Every Constitutional Law problem follows a predictable analytical framework:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ CONSTITUTIONAL LAW ANALYSIS FLOW │
├─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ │
│ 0. JUSTICIABILITY │
│ ↓ │
│ Can a court hear this at all? │
│ (standing, ripeness, mootness) │
│ │
│ 1. GOVERNMENTAL POWER │
│ ↓ │
│ Does government have authority │
│ to act? (Federal vs. State) │
│ │
│ 2. INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS │
│ ↓ │
│ Does the action infringe a │
│ constitutional right? │
│ │
│ 3. LEVEL OF SCRUTINY │
│ ↓ │
│ What test applies? │
│ (Strict, Intermediate, Rational) │
│ │
│ 4. APPLICATION │
│ ↓ │
│ Does government action survive? │
│ │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘
Note that justiciability now sits at step 0 rather than buried in the mistakes section. On an essay, threshold questions come first or you risk analyzing the merits of a case no court would hear.
2. Federal vs. State Power: The Federalism Dance 🕺
The Constitution creates a system of dual sovereignty — both federal and state governments have distinct powers.
Federal Powers (Enumerated & Limited):
The federal government can only act when the Constitution grants it authority. The most frequently tested sources:
+──────────────────────+────────────────────────────────────+
│ FEDERAL POWER │ SCOPE │
+──────────────────────+────────────────────────────────────+
│ Commerce Clause │ Regulate: │
│ (Art. I, §8) │ • Channels of interstate commerce │
│ │ • Instrumentalities of commerce │
│ │ • Activities with substantial │
│ │ effect on interstate commerce │
+──────────────────────+────────────────────────────────────+
│ Taxing & Spending │ Tax for general welfare │
│ (Art. I, §8) │ Spend for any public purpose │
│ │ (very broad power) │
+──────────────────────+────────────────────────────────────+
│ War & Defense │ Raise armies, declare war │
│ Powers │ Broad authority during wartime │
+──────────────────────+────────────────────────────────────+
│ Necessary & Proper │ Implement other enumerated powers │
│ Clause │ (not independent authority) │
+──────────────────────+────────────────────────────────────+
State Powers (General Police Powers):
States possess inherent police powers to legislate for public health, safety, welfare, and morals. This is much broader than federal power.
💡 Critical Distinction: For federal power questions you must identify a specific constitutional source. For state power questions, simply note that states have general police powers (unless preempted or violating individual rights).
3. The Supremacy Clause & Preemption ⚡
When federal and state laws conflict, federal law prevails under the Supremacy Clause (Art. VI). Preemption occurs in three ways:
Express Preemption: Federal statute explicitly states it preempts state law.
Implied Preemption:
- Field preemption: Federal regulation is so comprehensive it occupies the entire field
- Conflict preemption: Impossible to comply with both laws, or state law impedes federal objectives
⚠️ Common Mistake: Assuming all federal laws automatically preempt state laws. The default presumption is against preemption, especially in areas of traditional state concern (family law, property, criminal law).
4. Separation of Powers: The Three Branches 🏢
The Constitution divides federal power among three branches, each checking the others:
LEGISLATIVE (Congress) — makes laws
│
┌───────────┴───────────┐
│ │
▼ ▼
EXECUTIVE JUDICIAL
(President) (Courts)
enforces laws interprets laws
│ │
└───────────┬───────────┘
│
Checks & balances run BETWEEN these branches —
veto, override, appointment, confirmation,
judicial review, impeachment. They are not a
fourth institution.
Congressional Powers:
- Cannot delegate legislative power without an intelligible principle
- Can investigate and subpoena for legitimate legislative purposes
- Bicameralism and presentment required for lawmaking
Presidential Powers:
- Domestic: Execute laws, appoint officials, pardon federal offenses
- Foreign Affairs: Treaties (two-thirds of Senators present), executive agreements (no Senate approval), commander-in-chief
- Executive Privilege: Presumptive privilege for presidential communications, which can be overcome by a demonstrated need
Judicial Powers:
- Limited to cases and controversies (Art. III)
- No advisory opinions
- Subject to justiciability doctrines
⚠️ The Removal Power — Recently Changed
This is the most volatile area in the subject, and any materials printed before July 2026 state it incorrectly.
The framework that governed for 90 years. Humphrey's Executor v. United States (1935) held that Congress could shield FTC commissioners from at-will removal, reasoning that they exercised quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial rather than executive power. That case is the reason "independent agencies" existed as a category.
The erosion. Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB (2010) struck down dual-layer removal protection. Seila Law v. CFPB (2020) held that single-director agencies wielding substantial executive power cannot be insulated. Collins v. Yellen (2021) extended that reasoning.
The current rule. In Trump v. Slaughter, decided June 29, 2026, the Supreme Court held 6–3 that the FTC Act's for-cause removal protections are unconstitutional and expressly overruled Humphrey's Executor. Chief Justice Roberts grounded the decision in Article II's Vesting Clause: an officer who exercises the President's own executive power is subject to removal by him. Justice Sotomayor dissented, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson.
The Federal Reserve is already carved out — do not write that it is unsettled. In the companion case Trump v. Cook, decided the same day (29 June 2026), the Court declined to permit removal of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, holding that the Fed is constitutionally distinct. Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the majority, joined by Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh and Jackson — a different coalition from Slaughter. So the Fed exception is a holding, not an open question, and an essay saying otherwise is now wrong.
What genuinely is unsettled. The Court left open which other entities, if any, fall outside Slaughter's rule, and what remedies are available to a removed officer. Removal protections at many multimember agencies are now in doubt rather than definitively resolved. Do not state a confident rule about any particular agency beyond the FTC.
📌 How to handle very recent law on the MBE. NCBE writes items well in advance, and there is normally a lag before a new decision appears on the exam. I do not know NCBE's stated policy on that lag and won't guess at it. The safe posture: know the old framework (it explains the entire architecture of independent agencies and appears in older practice questions), know that Slaughter overruled it, and if a question turns on the difference, answer under the current rule. Verify against NCBE's Constitutional Law subject matter outline for your administration.
5. Individual Rights & Levels of Scrutiny 🎯
+──────────────────+──────────────────────+────────────────+
│ LEVEL OF SCRUTINY│ WHEN APPLIED │ TEST │
+──────────────────+──────────────────────+────────────────+
│ STRICT SCRUTINY │ • Fundamental rights │ Necessary / │
│ (Highest) │ (voting, interstate│ narrowly │
│ │ travel, privacy) │ tailored to a │
│ 🔴 Gov't usually │ • Suspect classes │ COMPELLING │
│ loses │ (race, national │ government │
│ │ origin, state │ interest │
│ │ alienage*) │ │
+──────────────────+──────────────────────+────────────────+
│ INTERMEDIATE │ • Quasi-suspect │ Substantially │
│ SCRUTINY │ classes (gender, │ related to an │
│ │ illegitimacy) │ IMPORTANT │
│ 🟡 Genuinely │ • Content-neutral │ government │
│ contested │ time/place/manner │ interest │
+──────────────────+──────────────────────+────────────────+
│ RATIONAL BASIS │ • Everything else │ Rationally │
│ (Lowest) │ • Economic regulation│ related to a │
│ │ • Age, disability, │ LEGITIMATE │
│ 🟢 Gov't usually │ wealth, residency │ government │
│ wins │ │ interest │
+──────────────────+──────────────────────+────────────────+
* On alienage, the asterisk hides real content. State classifications based on alienage generally get strict scrutiny. Federal classifications get something closer to rational basis, because of Congress's plenary power over immigration. And there is a political function exception: states may reserve positions central to self-government (police officers, public school teachers, probation officers) for citizens under rational basis. "Alienage — sometimes" is not a usable rule; learn the three-part split.
On sexual orientation: most bar materials place it in rational basis, and that is the safer answer on a timed question. Be aware that the Supreme Court has never squarely announced a tier for it, and the cases striking down such classifications have applied rational basis with unusual rigor.
🧠 Learn the triggers separately from the test. The prior draft's mnemonic mixed them together, which causes exactly the confusion it was meant to prevent.
Triggers for strict scrutiny — two independent routes:
- Suspect classification: race, national origin, state alienage
- Fundamental right: voting, interstate travel, privacy/marriage/procreation, content-based speech regulation
Triggers for intermediate scrutiny: gender, illegitimacy, content-neutral time/place/manner.
The test itself is a separate memory item. Strict = narrowly tailored to a compelling interest. Intermediate = substantially related to an important interest. Rational basis = rationally related to a legitimate interest.
Either route independently triggers strict scrutiny. A statute can burden a fundamental right without using a suspect classification, and vice versa.
6. The Bill of Rights & Incorporation 📋
The first ten amendments originally applied only to the federal government. Through the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause, most provisions have been incorporated against the states.
Incorporated (apply to states):
- 1st Amendment — speech, religion, press, assembly, petition
- 2nd Amendment — right to bear arms (McDonald v. City of Chicago, 2010)
- 4th Amendment — searches and seizures
- 5th Amendment — self-incrimination, double jeopardy, takings
- 6th Amendment — criminal procedure rights, including the unanimous-verdict requirement (Ramos v. Louisiana, 2020)
- 8th Amendment — cruel and unusual punishment, and the Excessive Fines Clause (Timbs v. Indiana, 2019)
Not incorporated:
- 3rd Amendment — quartering soldiers
- 5th Amendment right to grand jury indictment (Hurtado v. California)
- 7th Amendment — civil jury trial
⚠️ Correction from the prior draft: excessive fines was listed as unincorporated and "debated." Timbs resolved it in 2019. Materials that still list it as open are out of date.
Detailed Examples 📚
Example 1: Commerce Clause Authority 🚢
Hypothetical: Congress requires all wheat farmers, including those growing wheat solely for personal consumption, to comply with federal production quotas. A farmer growing wheat only for his family challenges the law.
Issue: Does the Commerce Clause reach wheat grown for personal consumption?
Rule: Congress may regulate (1) channels of interstate commerce, (2) instrumentalities, and (3) activities having a substantial effect on interstate commerce. For the third category, Congress may reach intrastate activity if it substantially affects interstate commerce in the aggregate.
Application: Individually, home-grown wheat looks purely local. Collectively, home consumption reduces market demand and affects the interstate wheat market. Congress may rationally conclude the aggregate effect is substantial.
Conclusion: Constitutional. The individual farmer's impact is irrelevant; the aggregate effect controls.
💡 This is Wickard v. Filburn (1942). Aggregate effect is the phrase to recognize.
⚠️ The limits — corrected. United States v. Lopez (1995) and United States v. Morrison (2000) hold that Congress may not aggregate non-economic intrastate activity to reach it under the Commerce Clause. The prior draft said such activity could be regulated "unless Congress makes findings showing substantial interstate commerce effects." That is wrong, and it inverts the holding: Morrison had congressional findings before it and rejected them as insufficient. Findings do not cure the economic/non-economic distinction.
Two cases complete the picture:
- Gonzales v. Raich (2005) upheld federal regulation of homegrown medical marijuana, distinguishing Lopez on the ground that the activity was part of a comprehensive regulatory scheme addressing an interstate market. This is the case that stops students from over-reading Lopez.
- NFIB v. Sebelius (2012) held that the Commerce Clause permits Congress to regulate existing commercial activity but not to compel individuals to enter commerce.
Example 2: Dormant Commerce Clause 🍷
Hypothetical: Vineland prohibits the sale of wine not produced within its borders, citing quality and support for local farmers. Out-of-state wineries challenge.
Rule: Even absent federal legislation, the Commerce Clause limits state power to burden interstate commerce.
- Discriminatory laws — treat in-state and out-of-state commerce differently. Virtually per se invalid: the state must show a legitimate local purpose that cannot be served by reasonable non-discriminatory alternatives.
- Non-discriminatory but burdensome laws — evaluated under Pike balancing: burden on interstate commerce weighed against local benefits.
Exceptions: market participant; congressional authorization; the 21st Amendment's limited additional authority over alcohol.
Application: The law facially discriminates. Quality control is a legitimate purpose, but protecting local farmers is economic protectionism, which is never a legitimate justification. And quality could be achieved through non-discriminatory inspection requirements — a reasonable alternative that defeats the necessity showing.
Conclusion: Violates the Dormant Commerce Clause. The 21st Amendment gives states real authority over alcohol but does not authorize discrimination against out-of-state producers (Granholm v. Heald, 2005; Tennessee Wine & Spirits v. Thomas, 2019).
🔧 Try This: When a state law treats in-state and out-of-state businesses differently, ask immediately: "Is this protectionism, and is there a non-discriminatory alternative?"
Example 3: Residency Preferences — Two Issues, Not One 👥
Hypothetical: A state university adds points to in-state residents' applications, to reward families paying state taxes and maintain community connection. An out-of-state applicant challenges.
⚠️ This example was previously analyzed under Equal Protection alone. That was Lesson 1's Mistake 4 in action — a whole doctrine sat unused in the facts. A residency classification disadvantaging out-of-state citizens raises two issues, and an essay answer that addresses only the first leaves a scoring line untouched.
Issue 1: Equal Protection.
Rule: Scrutiny depends on classification — suspect (race, national origin, state alienage) gets strict; quasi-suspect (gender, illegitimacy) gets intermediate; everything else gets rational basis.
Application: The classification is residency, which is neither suspect nor quasi-suspect, so rational basis applies. Rewarding in-state taxpayers, maintaining community connection, and managing subsidized capacity are all legitimate interests, and a residency preference is rationally related to each.
Conclusion: Survives rational basis review under the Equal Protection Clause.
Issue 2: Article IV Privileges and Immunities.
Rule: Article IV, §2 bars a state from discriminating against citizens of other states with respect to fundamental rights and important economic activities, unless the state shows a substantial reason for the difference and that the discrimination bears a substantial relationship to that reason. Note two limits: the clause protects individual citizens, not corporations or aliens, and it reaches only fundamental/important interests.
Application: The preference is expressly based on out-of-state citizenship, so the clause is in play. The state's stronger argument is that access to a subsidized public university is not a protected fundamental right or essential economic activity in the way that pursuing a livelihood is, and that non-residents have not contributed to the tax base funding the subsidy. Courts have generally accepted this reasoning for tuition differentials.
Conclusion: The preference most likely survives, but the analysis runs through Article IV, not Equal Protection, and the reasoning is different in kind.
💡 The transferable point: residency classifications generally get rational basis under Equal Protection. But residency requirements burdening a fundamental right — voting, or the right to interstate travel under Saenz v. Roe — get strict scrutiny, and discrimination against out-of-state citizens triggers Article IV independently. Three different doctrines, three different fact patterns. Confusing them is a reliable way to lose points.
Example 4: First Amendment Free Speech 🗣️
Hypothetical: A city bans all signs on residential lawns, citing aesthetics and property values. A homeowner wants to post a political sign.
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ FIRST AMENDMENT FRAMEWORK │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ CONTENT-BASED RESTRICTIONS │
│ (Regulate based on message) │
│ → Strict Scrutiny │
│ → Presumptively unconstitutional │
│ │
│ CONTENT-NEUTRAL RESTRICTIONS │
│ (Apply regardless of message) │
│ → Time, Place, Manner test: │
│ • Narrowly tailored to a significant │
│ government interest │
│ • Leave open alternative channels │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Application: The ordinance reaches all signs regardless of message, so it is content-neutral on its face. But it is a total ban on an entire medium of communication.
- Significant interest: aesthetics and property values are legitimate, though weaker than safety.
- Narrow tailoring: a complete ban is not narrowly tailored — size, number, placement, and illumination limits would serve the interest with far less restriction.
- Alternative channels: there is no adequate substitute for speaking to one's own neighbors from one's own home. Handbills and newspaper ads reach different audiences at different cost.
Conclusion: Unconstitutional. It fails tailoring and forecloses a unique medium.
🤔 The Court struck down a comparable ordinance in City of Ladue v. Gilleo (1994), describing residential signs as a venerable and unique means of communication.
Common Mistakes to Avoid ⚠️
1. Confusing State Action Requirements
The Constitution restricts government action, not private conduct. Private conduct becomes state action when the government is significantly entangled with the private actor, the private actor performs a traditional and exclusive government function, or the government compels or encourages the conduct.
2. Wrong Scrutiny Level
Learn the triggers and the tests as separate memory items (see §5). Ask two questions in order: is there a suspect or quasi-suspect classification, and is a fundamental right burdened? Either one alone can raise the tier.
3. Treating the Necessary and Proper Clause as Independent
The N&P Clause implements other enumerated powers. Always identify the underlying authority first.
4. Misapplying the Dormant Commerce Clause
Only discriminatory or unduly burdensome laws violate it, and market participation, congressional authorization, and (for alcohol) the 21st Amendment all matter.
5. Skipping Justiciability
Check standing (injury in fact, causation, redressability), ripeness, mootness, and political question before the merits. This now appears as step 0 of the framework in §1.
6. Analyzing Only One Doctrine
Example 3 is the model case. When a fact pattern discriminates against out-of-staters, Equal Protection and Article IV are both live. When it burdens speech, content-based and content-neutral analyses may both need addressing. Lesson 1's unused-fact scan applies here: if a fact in the problem does no work in your analysis, you have probably missed a doctrine.
7. Ignoring Procedural Due Process
Before depriving a person of life, liberty, or property, government must provide notice and an opportunity to be heard. The Mathews v. Eldridge balancing test weighs the private interest, the risk of erroneous deprivation and the value of additional safeguards, and the government's interest.
MBE Strategy: Constitutional Law Questions 📝
Time budget — corrected. Each MBE session is 100 questions in 3 hours, so roughly 1.8 minutes per question. There are two such sessions, 200 questions total, of which 175 are scored. The prior draft said "175 questions in 175 minutes for each MBE session," which conflated the scored total with the per-session count and implied a 1.0-minute pace.
A workable per-question sequence, totalling about 100 seconds and leaving a small buffer:
- Identify the constitutional issue (~30s) — federal power, state power, individual rights, or structural?
- Recall the governing rule and the applicable test (~15s)
- Eliminate choices with wrong legal standards (~20s)
- Apply to the facts and select the best answer (~25s)
- Commit and move on (~10s)
⚠️ On "trust your first instinct": the prior draft advised this, and it is not supported. The research on answer-changing finds that considered changes are more often wrong-to-right than the reverse. The defensible version is narrower: do not change an answer on a vague feeling of unease, but do change it if you identify a specific reason — you misread a fact, you applied the wrong tier, you missed the call of the question. The real enemy is time spent oscillating, not the change itself.
Quick Reference Card 📋
╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ CONSTITUTIONAL LAW QUICK REFERENCE ║
╠══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ JUSTICIABILITY (check first!) ║
║ • Standing: injury, causation, redressability ║
║ • Ripeness / Mootness / Political question ║
║ ║
║ FEDERAL POWERS (must cite specific source) ║
║ • Commerce Clause — most common ║
║ Wickard (aggregate) / Lopez, Morrison (non-economic ║
║ limit; findings do NOT cure) / Raich (comprehensive ║
║ scheme) / NFIB (no compelling entry into commerce) ║
║ • Taxing & Spending — very broad ║
║ • War Powers ║
║ • Necessary & Proper — NOT independent ║
║ ║
║ SEPARATION OF POWERS ║
║ • Removal: Humphrey's Executor OVERRULED by ║
║ Trump v. Slaughter (June 29, 2026). Officers ║
║ exercising executive power are removable at will. ║
║ Scope beyond the FTC still unsettled. ║
║ ║
║ SCRUTINY — triggers and tests are separate items ║
║ • STRICT: race, national origin, state alienage; OR ║
║ fundamental right (vote, travel, privacy) ║
║ → narrowly tailored to COMPELLING interest ║
║ • INTERMEDIATE: gender, illegitimacy; content-neutral ║
║ → substantially related to IMPORTANT interest ║
║ • RATIONAL BASIS: everything else, incl. residency ║
║ → rationally related to LEGITIMATE interest ║
║ ║
║ OUT-OF-STATE DISCRIMINATION — check BOTH ║
║ • Equal Protection (residency → rational basis) ║
║ • Article IV Privileges & Immunities (citizens only) ║
║ • Dormant Commerce Clause (if commerce is burdened) ║
║ ║
║ FIRST AMENDMENT SPEECH ║
║ • Content-based → strict scrutiny ║
║ • Content-neutral → time/place/manner ║
║ ║
║ INCORPORATION — NOT incorporated: ║
║ • 3rd Amdt; 5th Amdt grand jury; 7th Amdt civil jury ║
║ • (Excessive fines IS incorporated — Timbs, 2019) ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
Further Study 📚
NCBE — MBE Preparation and Subject Matter Outlines https://www.ncbex.org/exams/mbe/preparing-mbe The official content outline. Check this against any commercial materials you're using, particularly for the removal-power material.
Oyez Project https://www.oyez.org/ Summaries and argument audio for landmark cases including Wickard, Lopez, Morrison, Raich, and Seila Law.
Cornell Legal Information Institute https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/constitutional_law Free encyclopedia with doctrine explanations and an annotated Constitution.
Next Steps: Lesson 3 covers Torts — negligence, intentional torts, and strict liability. Note that Lesson 1's Dana-and-Peter walkthrough is a negligence problem, so that material connects directly.
Appendix: Changes From the Prior Draft
| # | Prior draft said | Corrected to | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Humphrey's Executor settled; Congress may impose good-cause removal limits | Overruled by Trump v. Slaughter, June 29, 2026 (6–3) | Wrong law |
| 2 | "175 questions in 175 minutes for each MBE session" | 100 questions per 3-hour session; 1.8 min/question; 175 scored of 200 across both | Wrong figures |
| 3 | Con Law is "approximately 10% of the MBE (about 25 questions)" | 25 of 175 scored = 14.3% | Arithmetic |
| 4 | Excessive Fines Clause not incorporated, "debated" | Incorporated — Timbs v. Indiana (2019) | Outdated |
| 5 | Non-economic intrastate activity reachable if Congress makes findings | Morrison rejected findings as insufficient; added Raich and NFIB | Wrong law |
| 6 | Example 3 analyzed under Equal Protection only | Added Article IV Privileges & Immunities as a second issue | Missing doctrine |
| 7 | "CRAP FUN" mnemonic (8 items, letters don't map, mixes triggers with tests) | Triggers and tests taught as separate lists | Broken aid |
| 8 | "Trust your first instinct" | Change on identified error, not on vague unease | Unsupported advice |
| 9 | Diagram showed "Checks & Balances" as a node parallel to the branches | Redrawn as relations between branches | Diagram error |
| 10 | "Alienage (sometimes)" | State strict / federal rational basis / political-function exception | Imprecise |
| 11 | Justiciability appeared only in the mistakes section | Promoted to step 0 of the analytical framework | Structure |
Note on the figures: the prior draft embedded three rendered PNG diagrams. The federal-powers and First Amendment diagrams are substantively correct and can be kept. The separation-of-powers PNG contains the error at #9 above and will need regenerating from the corrected ASCII in §4.