James Madison, the Father of our Constitution, once said, “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”
The Informed Citizen, a civics blog of the NJSBF, tackles civics-related topics with the goal of arming all citizens with the knowledge of how the Founding Fathers created the nation and what every citizen’s rights are under the U.S. Constitution.
Posts are added to the blog periodically. All posts contain Discussion Questions and Glossary Words, providing a complete lesson plan. To suggest a civics-related topic for the blog, contact Jodi L. Miller at jmiller@njsbf.org.
For more on civics, check out the Civics Publications toggle on our Publications Page, download a copy of the Special Civics Edition of The Legal Eagle or order one of our civics-related publications, including the Bill of Rights Up Close or Beyond the Bill of Rights using our Publication Order Form.
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Free Speech or Hate Speech, Both Protected—To a Point
by Jodi L. Miller In the United States, Americans value the right to free speech. It is the foundation of our fundamental rights, provided for in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The...
Framers of the U.S. Constitution Valued Silence
by Jodi L. Miller If you’ve ever watched an episode of Law & Order or some other police procedural, you’re probably familiar with the Self-Incrimination Clause of the Fifth Amendment, which...
Explaining the Double Jeopardy Clause
by Jodi L. Miller Can you imagine going through the anxiety and expense of a trial, ultimately being acquitted of the crime you’re accused of only to be tried again for the same crime? The Founding...
Hands Off My Property! — The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment
by Jodi L. Miller While the Fifth Amendment includes rights that are mostly focused on criminal law, it also includes what is known as the Takings Clause, which reads, “… nor shall private property...
Grand Juries and Due Process
by Jodi L. Miller The Grand Jury Clause and the Due Process Clause are the first and fourth clauses, respectively, of the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment. Essentially, these clauses deal with...
Establishing Judicial Review—Origins of the U.S. Supreme Court
by Jodi L. Miller A 2024 Gallup poll revealed that 52% of Americans disapprove of the job that the U.S. Supreme Court is doing. According to a 2024 Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs...
The Influence of a U.S. Supreme Court Dissent
by Jodi L. Miller When a U.S. Supreme Court majority opinion is released, legal scholars scrutinize it, either praising it for its considered legal argument or disparaging it because they disagree...
Supreme Court Reforms—from Court Packing to Term Limits
by Jodi L. Miller Amid calls for U.S. Supreme Court reform, then President Joseph Biden issued an executive order in April 2021 that formed the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the...
Is the U.S. Constitution Dead or Alive?
by Jodi L. Miller When the U.S. Constitution was written in 1787 it took at least 30 seconds to load a musket. Could the framers of the Constitution have envisioned automatic weapons? In a time when...
Maintaining Checks & Balances in Moore v. Harper
by Jodi L. Miller The United States government is a system of checks and balances. The Founders designed it that way so that no one branch—executive, legislative or judicial—has more power than...
Electing a Speaker of the House—It Can Be Complicated
by Jodi L. Miller If you happened to see the 2023 Speaker of the House election process—whether through snippets on the evening news, or maybe you watched the coverage on CSPAN—take heart, because...
Updating an Old Act
by Jodi L. Miller Election rules and procedures in the United States can be complicated. That is especially true in presidential election years because we don’t have one presidential election, we...