Discover

'''Coleman v. Miller''', is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court which clarified that if the Congress of the United States—when proposing for ratification an amendment to the United States Constitution pursuant to Article V thereof—chooses ''not'' to specify a deadline within which the state legislatures (or conventions held in the states) must act upon the proposed amendment, then the amendment remains pending business before the state legislatures (or conventions).
According to ''Coleman'', it is none other than the Congress itself—if and when the Congress should later be presented with valid ratifications from the required number of states—which has the discretion to arbitrate the question of whether too much time has elapsed between Congress' initial proposal of the amendment and the most recent state ratification thereof assuming that, as a consequence of that most recent action, the legislatures of (or conventions conducted within) at least three-fourths of the states have approved the amendment at one time or another.
The ''Coleman'' ruling—which modified the 1921 finding in ''Dillon v. Gloss''—formed the basis of the belated and unusual ratification of the 27th Amendment.
Thus far in American history, the 21st Amendment is the only one that was submitted to special ratifying conventions assembled in the states—rather than to the state legislatures—for ratification.
The ''Coleman'' decision has been described as the genesis of the "political question doctrine" which is sometimes espoused by federal courts in cases wherein the court deems the matter at hand to be properly assigned to the discretion of the legislative branch of the federal government.

Contents

See also

See also

★ Child Labor Amendment

★ Congressional Apportionment Amendment

★ Corwin Amendment

★ Titles of Nobility Amendment

★ Political question doctrine

★ List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 307