Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339 (1960), was a United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled the redrawing of the city's electoral district boundaries to prevent blacks from voting was unconstitutional. The unanimous Court held that it violated the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This case was one of several that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In 1957, the Alabama state legislature passed Act number 140 that changed the borders of the city of Tuskegee's electoral district. It changed the square boundary of Tuskegee to an irregular 28-sided figure that eliminated all but a few of the city's 400 black voters but did not eliminate any white voters. It had the effect of keeping African-American citizens from voting. The petitioners Charles A. Gomillion and other black former residents of Tuskegee brought the suit against the Mayor of Tuskegee, Philip M. Lightfoot. They wanted the law ruled unconstitutional under the Fifteenth Amendment. They also wanted an order that prevented the city from enforcing the Act.
The District Court dismissed the case on the grounds it did not have the authority to invalidate an Act passed by the state legislature. The court ruled:
On 14 November 1960, the Supreme Court dismissed the ruling by the lower courts and ruled the Alabama redistricting act was unconstitutional. Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote the majority opinion. He admitted that when states exercise power "wholly within the domain of state interest" they are generally protected from judicial review. But Alabama's representatives were not able to identify "any countervailing municipal function" that this act could serve. It was clear the irregular shaped district had only one purpose, namely, to prevent blacks from any participation in the political system of Tuskegee.
This case marked a change in the Supreme Court's involvement in political redistricting. Up to this point the Court had shown it was reluctant to interfere with the States when establishing political boundaries of their cities. However, this case served to show that states cannot deprive citizens of their voting rights which are protected by the Fifteenth Amendment. Although the practice of gerrymandering remained an issue after this case, the Court determined it was unconstitutional when it clearly discriminated against any particular racial group.
United States v. Wong Kim Ark
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, , is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that a child born in the United States to parents of Chinese descent automatically becomes a U.S. citizen by birth based on the Citizenship Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco, California in 1873 to parents who were Chinese immigrants and who remained the subjects of the Emperor of China. Ark had lived in California ever since he was born. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. This act denied citizenship to any Chinese immigrants and did not allow any new immigrants into the United States from China until 1892. Ark's parents returned to China in 1890. He visited them there but returned to San Francisco and was recognized as a native-born American citizen when he re-entered the country. In 1894, when he was 21 years old, Ark went to visit his parents in China again. But when he returned in 1895 the U.S. Customs denied his entry, claiming he was not a U.S. citizen. Ark was returned to the ship he came on, then to another ship the "Gaelic". He was sent to Peking, China where he waited for a chance to return to the United States where he lived.
Ark did not know at the time his situation would be used as a test case by the United States government. The anti-Chinese sentiment at the time was trying to undermine the Fourteenth Amendment provision which made Ark a citizen in the first place. It said “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” Since the beginning, America had welcomed people from other countries. The Chinese came to America, mined its gold, built its railways and farmed much of northern California. But when the Panic of 1873 struck, it caused a major depression where many in the U.S. lost their jobs. The Chinese workers, who worked for very low wages, became scapegoats and were blamed for much of the trouble. There was mob violence and arson against Chinese workers in California. As a part of this, Congress enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 to try to stop Chinese immigration into the U.S.
With legal support from the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, Ark sued the U.S. government. A District court issued a writ of Habeas corpus on Ark's behalf. Government lawyers challenged the writ. The issue was whether his birth in San Francisco made him a citizen of the United States. The argument against Ark was his parents were subjects of China which made Ark a subject of China as well. Therefore, he was not, in the words of the Fourteenth Amendment, "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States and was therefore not a U.S. citizen. Both China and Japan held that children born to their citizens, wherever they were born, was based on their bloodline. Chinese law stated children born to Chinese nationals were citizens of China, as long as their birth is properly registered in China. The U.S. is mainly a country of citizenship by soil, also called "Jus soli". This means they are citizens, by 'right of the soil', based on the state, territory or country in which they were born.
Lawyers for the federal government claimed that Chinese citizenship law was more important than U.S. citizenship law in this case. The Supreme Court disagreed.
Both parties had agreed to the following facts of the case:
The question was whether the government could deny citizenship to persons born in the United States in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court ruled that Ark is an American citizen by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Horace Gray delivered the majority opinion of the Court.
The case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark set a legal precedent for all children born in the United States, regardless of their parents' status or citizenship. During the campaigning for the United States presidential election, 2016, the issue of children born in this country to undocumented aliens has come up again. Because of "Wong Kim Ark", a child born in the U.S. is a citizen regardless of his or her parents’ citizenship or status. This could change by means of a Constitutional amendment, but this is a lengthy and difficult process.
Western Punjabi Wikipedia
The Punjabi Wikipedia (پنجابی ویکیپیڈیا) is the Punjabi language edition of Wikipedia. The Punjabi language is spoken in Punjab region of Pakistan country. It also has the name of Lahnda language. It holds the 88th place in complete list of Wikipedia by articles, with 62,567 articles as of June 2021.
Light Rail Transit (Singapore)
The Light Rail Transit (LRT) is a light rail system used in Singapore. It acts as a feeder service to the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) network. The LRT started operation on 6 November 1999 with the Bukit Panjang LRT to Choa Chu Kang route. As of 2017, the system consists of three lines with 43 stations.
Singapore already had a good MRT system when the Land Transport Authority (LTA) decided to add the LRT. This is because it is cheaper and easier to build LRTs. This new system would decrease traffic jams but without the huge cost and effort needed to build more MRT lines and stations. Construction began in 1996 with the Bukit Panjang to Choa Chu Kang route. The service first ran on 6 November 1999.