The Federal Amendment
The federal victims' rights amendments which have been proposed are similar to the above. The primary contention, and perhaps the main reason that to this point they remain only proposals, is whether they will apply only to federal offenses and the federal system or will mandate all states to adopt similar provisions (the version advocated by at least one very high-profile advocate, John Walsh, host of America's Most Wanted). This second version is offensive to many otherwise conservative "law and order" members of United States Congress because they deem it to be violative of another principle important to conservatives, that of federalism. Advocates of both sides are adamant on their version, and for this reason neither has been passed by either house of Congress as of 2005.
Read more about this topic: Victims' Rights Amendment
Famous quotes containing the words federal and/or amendment:
“The Federal Constitution has stood the test of more than a hundred years in supplying the powers that have been needed to make the Central Government as strong as it ought to be, and with this movement toward uniform legislation and agreements between the States I do not see why the Constitution may not serve our people always.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“... when we shall have our amendment to the Constitution of the United States, everyone will think it was always so, just exactly as many young people believe that all the privileges, all the freedom, all the enjoyments which woman now possesses were always hers. They have no idea of how every single inch of ground that she stands upon to-day has been gained by the hard work of some little handful of women of the past.”
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