Portal:Law/Statute/Week 30 2006

The First Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is a part of the United States Bill of Rights. Textually, it prohibits the federal legislature from making laws that:

The First Amendment only explicitly disallows any of the rights from being abridged by laws made by Congress, but as the first sentence in the body of the Constitution reserves all law-making ("legislative") authority to Congress, the courts have held that this extends to the executive and judicial branches. Additionally, in the 20th century the Supreme Court has held that the Due Process clause of the 1868 Fourteenth Amendment "incorporates" the limitations of the First Amendment to also restrict the states.

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