The eleven-move protocol
Start with the actor and the court’s power. End with a remedy no broader than the violation. The order keeps strong analysis from becoming a doctrine dump.
Attack sequence
Name the actor
Congress, the President, a federal agency, a federal court, a state, or a state official. Identity determines the source and limits of power.
Write one clean sentence: “The challenged actor is ___, exercising ___ power.”
Isolate the act
Separate enactment, enforcement, appointment, removal, regulation, adjudication, spending, and judicial review. One fact pattern often contains several acts.
Analyze each challenged act independently before combining the conclusions.
Open the courthouse
Check standing, ripeness, mootness, advisory opinions, political questions, and jurisdiction before reaching the merits.
Identify injury, causation, redressability, timing, and any exception that keeps the controversy alive.
Trace authority
Congress needs an enumerated power. The President needs Article II or statutory authority. Federal courts need Article III jurisdiction.
Name the clause or statute, then connect the challenged act to it.
Test the means
For Congress, ask whether the means rationally implement an enumerated end and remain consistent with the Constitution’s letter and structure.
Necessary does not mean indispensable, but “Proper” still blocks structural evasions.
Audit the branches
Use Youngstown for presidential action. Check bicameralism and presentment, appointments, supervision, removal, adjudication, and congressional control of execution.
For executive action, place the President in Category One, Two, or Three before resolving the claim.
Measure delegated power
Distinguish ordinary delegation under an intelligible principle from an agency claim of vast economic or political power requiring clear congressional authorization.
Do not collapse nondelegation and major questions; they ask different questions about Congress and the agency.
Check the vertical boundary
Congress may regulate private actors and preempt conflicting state law, but it may not commandeer state legislatures or executive officers.
For spending, test welfare, clarity, relatedness, independent bars, and coercion.
Name the defendant
Distinguish the state from cities and officials; damages from prospective relief; consent from valid congressional abrogation.
Ask who pays, who acts, and whether the alleged violation is ongoing.
Inspect state barriers
Check facial or purposeful discrimination first, then incidental burdens. Test market participation, congressional consent, and Article IV separately.
Corporations can bring dormant Commerce Clause claims but are not citizens under Article IV Privileges and Immunities.
Calibrate relief
Standing to sue does not dictate the remedy. Consider injunctions, severability, prospective relief, damages limits, and whether the remaining law can function.
State the narrowest remedy that cures the proven constitutional injury.
Issue-spotter
Choose the government actor, action, and point of friction. The guide will generate the first analytical moves—not a conclusion.
Rapid doctrine index
Concrete, particularized, actual or imminent injury; fairly traceable; likely redressable.
Chapter 1A live controversy must remain at every stage unless a recognized exception applies.
Chapter 1Classify the subject: channels, instrumentalities, or substantially affecting economic activity.
Chapter 2A means must rationally implement an enumerated end and remain constitutionally proper.
Chapter 2General welfare, clear notice, relatedness, no independent bar, and no coercion.
Chapter 3Binding federal law requires passage by both houses and presentment to the President.
Chapter 3Presidential power rises with authorization and falls when the Executive defies Congress.
Chapter 4Privilege is qualified; pardons reach federal offenses; immunity turns on the nature of the act.
Chapter 4Classify officer status, then test the appointing authority and required method.
Chapter 5Map executive power, structure, supervision, and the restriction on presidential removal.
Chapter 5Congress cannot order state legislative or executive machinery to run a federal program.
Chapter 6Valid federal law displaces state law expressly, by field occupation, or through conflict.
Chapter 6Discrimination receives demanding review; incidental burdens trigger balancing.
Chapter 6Separate state treasury liability from prospective relief against an enforcing officer.
Chapter 7Tailor relief to the injury and preserve independently operative law where appropriate.
Chapter 7No doctrine signal matches that search.