Hello and welcome to the Civic Flame, a podcast where we take a deep dive into the US Constitution and discuss how it is and is not working today. IÕm your host, Amber Vayo, professor of law and policy at Worcester State University. As a reminder, I am not a lawyer, so when I talk about law it is with a mix of application, history, sociology, and all of that jazz, not just about how you apply it. As we talked about in our last episode, judges and lawyers look at law in a different way than the rest of us becauseÉwell, itÕs their job. As we get into Article 4 of the Constitution, thatÕs going to matter because we get to some places where law in practice and law in society tend to look a little different. Any lawyers out there want to come and do a guest spot, just let us know! In the meantime, grab a seat by the fire, your favorite copy of the Constitution (I recommend that national constitution center), and letÕs go! (intro) 00:02:13 Now that weÕve completed our journey through the three branches of government with Articles 1-3, weÕre going to get into Article 4. Remember that the Articles of Confederation failed in part because it was unclear what the relationships between the states should be. States could print their own money, they could make their own foreign policy, and it wasnÕt clear how much they had to play nice together. Article 4 has four sections. For this week, weÕll cover the first two sections, and next week, weÕll get into sections 3 and 4. 00:03:17 Article 4, section 1 starts with something that shapes your daily life: the full faith and credit clause. It says, ÒFull Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts,ÊRecordsÊand Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.Ó There are some caveats here. States donÕt have to follow every law. Primarily, they have to follow civil laws. Civil laws are things that you donÕt go to jail for if you break them. So, if youÕre jay walking you may be breaking the law, but youÕre not actually committing a crime. Why? Because the penalty is administrative (like a ticket or fine or something) which makes it civil law. But there are also public policy things that states donÕt have to agree on. So, letÕs get into some of this. 00:04:13 Full faith and credit applies to public records like birth certificates, death certificates, marriage licenses, high school diplomas, and so on. This is why if you have a driversÕ license in one state, it is valid in another state (donÕt get me started on Real ID and why I think itÕs an infringement on our liberties!). Now typically, it is states that get to decide a lot of these public policy things. As weÕll talk about later, this has a lot to do with the 10th Amendment, which gives states legal jurisdiction over things related to health, education, and morals. The one rule is that nothing can conflict with the Constitution. So as long as those rules donÕt violate the ConstitutionÕs protection on equal protection under the law, due process, and so on, you can do pretty much anything else. Remember, we have not just what the law requires and forbids, but what the law allows that weÕre working with. The law requires states to give full faith and credit to each others public documents. But it allows a lot of discretion in there. 00:05:36 Marriage is a particularly salient example. No fault divorce wasnÕt legal in all 50 states until 2010, and there are many politicians now trying to get rid of it. But divorce in general has also been in a legally tangled area where different states had different requirements (residency, proof of infidelity or abuse, and so on). Before divorce was accessible in all parts of the US, people would go to Nevada, where divorce was a much quicker process. For example, you had to live in MA for around 5 years before you could apply for a divorce whereas in Nevade, I think it was just 6 months. So, off to Nevada people would go. TheyÕd stay there long enough to get residence, and then file for divorce. Once the divorce went through, theyÕd go to their home state, and because of the full faith and credit clause, the states would have to recognize it. Today this is still the case and can be complicated by custody battles, probate court, and so on. 00:07:00 One of the key features of the marriage equality argument was that if any state recognized marriage between same sex couples, then other states had to recognize the marriage license. To me, a constitutional radical, this is a clear argument. I donÕt care who or how many consenting adults you want to marry (though most states do ban polygamy, or marriage to multiple people), as long as everyone is a consenting adult (ideally over the age of 24-25 where that prefrontal cortex is fully developed) and youÕre all cool and non-abusive, then whatÕs it to me? 00:07:41 But states claim the 10th AmendmentÕs ÒpoliceÓ powers gives them the right to shape what they see as morality. The 2015 case Obergefell v Hodges fell pretty clearly on the side of full faith and credit and equal protection (14th Amendment) and said if two consenting adults can get married, then any two consenting adults can get married and it doesnÕt matter what genders they are. 00:08:20 But the areas of public policy and criminal law that are not always included in full faith and credit can also be thorny. Marijuana and euthanasia, for example, are legal to varying degrees around the country. Some states have medical marijuana legalized, others have recreational marijuana, others have none. Likewise, some states have policies that completely forbid euthanasia, others have physician assisted suicide, other have more non-physician assisted suicide. These are all possible under the flexibility of full faith and credit that maintains our federalism where each state has its own character, rules, moral and policy codes, while also saying that there are times when we are one country. While this is theoretically a what do states owe each other question, remember that it is also a freedom of movement question. If your high school diploma stopped or drivers license or marriage license was void once you crossed state lines, that would seriously restrict your right to live, work, and even visit, where ever you wanted. So full faith and credit exists to make the states play nice with each other, but states playing nice with each other is for the benefit of all of the people are our ability to live peaceably in our own country without fear of being targeted because one state government doesnÕt like the state weÕre from. 00:10:00 This gets into section 2 of Article 4, the Òprivileges and immunitiesÓ clause. Section 2 starts with ÒThe Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.Ó This is a fancy way of saying that states canÕt discriminate against you based on your state of origin. So, if you live in New Jersey but work in New York, New York canÕt pay you less or forbid you to work there. You have the right to work wherever youÕre hired and be treated like anyone else. 00:10:48 Likewise, if you stop someone speeding on the interstate, you canÕt charge them more because theyÕre from out of state. You canÕt forbid out of state residents from taking the bar exam or medical exam or going to state colleges. Interestingly, you can charge out of state residents more for state college tuition. This is not considered discriminatory because state colleges and universities are funded by state taxpayers. The idea here is that you or your family has paid into this pool of money, so you get the benefit of low tuition. Speaking of state school, Worcester State has low tuition and some pretty good deals from out of state students, so if youÕre cool and want to come hang out with me, check us out because privileges and immunities says you can come and live and learn here! 00:11:30 But, if youÕre convicted of a crime in your own state, we have to send me back. How do we know? The second part of Article 4, Section 2, ÒA Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.Ó This is whatÕs known as extradition. For example, if someone commits a crime in Florida and runs to Massachusetts to try and avoid the law, Massachusetts is required by Article 4 to send them back if Florida asks. Interestingly, this was not always something the courts said they had the power to enforce, but in 1987, the Supreme Court did rule that federal courts could order governments to comply with extradition orders. This is different internationally, and there are many countries that will not extradite someone charged with a capital crime to the US. This is because capital crimes are those that you can be sentenced to death for; since a vast majority of countries in the world do not allow the death penalty, many of those also do not allow extradition of a person who might be subject to a death sentence. 00:12:49 The final part of section 2 is obsolete now. It says, ÒNo Person held to Service or Labor in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labor, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labor may be due.Ó This is known as the Fugitive Slave Clause. Remember, there were several instances within the Constitution that protected the institution of slavery. It was this Òoriginal sinÓ that lead to our first Civil War. 00:13:47 It is also worth noting that this clause among other pieces of Fugitive Slave federal regulation disproves on its face the argument that the South was fighting for States Rights during the Civil War. Northern states regularly tried to find ways around returning enslaved people who reached freedom, and the South regularly relied on the coercive power of the federal government to force Northern states to return people. 00:14:14 ItÕs one of the many problems with our historical narrative. Too often we allow the ideology to do our thinking for us, and in this case, the belief that the South was fighting for states rights is exactly that: on its face easy to see it is nonsense but never questioned because it just becomes ideology. Overall, this Article really gets into several ways that are meant to help the states with some general level of stability across states both for the benefit of the citizens of each state, all people in the United States, and also to help stabilize relationships among the state by limiting areas where there are confusions, overlaps, or places where their might be resistance. (transition) 00:15:20 This was the first half of Article 4, and next week, weÕll hit you with the second half. In the meantime, follow us wherever you find your podcasts as well as on Blue Sky, Instagram, and Substack at Dr. Fun Sponge. Until next week, try to ease into the New Year slowly, and keep the civic flame burning bright! And take care out there. (outro) The Civic Flame is a Dr Fun Sponge Media Project made in conjunction with Amber Vayo, writer, and sound producer Matt Munyon.