NC v. the Rule of Law

Next, perhaps North Carolina will empower DMV employees to arbitrarily deny licenses to people.

We were talking yesterday about Harris v. McRae. Stevens’s dissent always repays re-reading:

The federal sovereign, like the States, must govern impartially. The concept of equal justice under law is served by the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process, as well as by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. When the sovereign provides a special benefit or a special protection for a class of persons, it must define the membership in the class by neutral criteria; it may not make special exceptions for reasons that are constitutionally insufficient.