The Civil Liberties Champion.Rights are most tested when they are least popular.
You read the Constitution’s promises of liberty and equality broadly and want them enforced. The Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment are, to you, the heart of the document, and courts exist to protect them.
Where you stand. On all five axes.
The Civil Liberties Champion
“Equal justice, for everyone, especially the unpopular.”
- Liberty and orderStrongly individual liberty
- The courtsLeans judicial engagement
- The presidencyLeans checked executive
constilumen.com/play/compass
Your profile card. What you’d share.
Take the compass and your own card shows your scores on every axis. Copy the link to your result and anyone who opens it sees the same picture.
Where you’re strong
- Treats the Fourteenth Amendment as a living guarantee
- Protects minorities from majorities
Where you’re tested
- Asks a great deal of unelected judges
- Broad readings can outrun the text
Your docket. How you’d likely rule.
Six hypothetical cases, decided from where The Civil Liberties Champion stands on each one’s axis. Hypothetical on purpose: no real judge’s record is implied.
- No. 01State v. Federal MandateA governor refuses to carry out a new federal program inside the state.States and the nationWeighs the facts; could go either way.
- No. 02In re AirstrikesThe President orders sustained airstrikes abroad without asking Congress.The presidencyRequires a vote of Congress.
- No. 03City v. Rally OrganizersA city bans a peaceful rally whose message most residents find hateful.Liberty and orderStrikes the ban: the rally goes ahead.
- No. 04Challengers v. Popular StatuteA law passed by a wide margin is challenged as unconstitutional.The courtsEnforces the Constitution and strikes the law.
- No. 05Petitioner v. Unnamed RightA court is asked to recognize a right the text never names.Reading the ConstitutionRecognizes it from the document’s principles.
- No. 06People v. Roadside SearchPolice search a car without a warrant and find evidence of a crime.Liberty and orderExcludes the evidence: get a warrant.
The clauses you lean on. In the document itself.
Cases that test you. From the record.
The landmark cases that turned on your two strongest axes: liberty and order and the courts.
- Korematsu v. United States323 U.S. 214 (1944) · 6–3 · Liberty and orderWas the wartime exclusion of people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast constitutional?
- Brandenburg v. Ohio395 U.S. 444 (1969) · 8–0 · Liberty and orderCould Ohio convict a Ku Klux Klan leader for advocating violence at a rally?
- Katz v. United States389 U.S. 347 (1967) · 7–1 · Liberty and orderWas recording a call from a public phone booth without a warrant a search?
- Marbury v. Madison5 U.S. 137 (1803) · 4–0 · The courtsCan the Supreme Court refuse to apply an act of Congress that conflicts with the Constitution?
- Cooper v. Aaron358 U.S. 1 (1958) · 9–0 · The courtsCould Arkansas officials delay desegregation in Little Rock by opposing Brown?
- Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo603 U.S. 369 (2024) · 6–2 · The courtsMust courts defer to an agency’s reasonable reading of an ambiguous statute?
Your rival: The Guardian of Order
To insure domestic Tranquility.
Read their sideFurther reading. Official and nonpartisan.
The Bill of Rights
The first ten amendments, as ratified in 1791.
National Archives
Register to vote
Registration deadlines and how to register in every state and territory.
U.S. government
Constitution Annotated
The official, clause-by-clause analysis of how the Constitution has been interpreted.
Library of Congress
The Interactive Constitution
Each clause explained by scholars from different perspectives.
National Constitution Center
All civic resources, including how to register to vote and find your election office.