Jurisdiction is not some singular concept that means the same thing in every context. You can have jurisdiction over some things in some contexts and not have jurisdiction over other things in other contexts.

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sanderjd 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Surely "subject to the jurisdiction" must mean subject to any jurisdiction, or it is completely meaningless.

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rayiner 2 days ago | parent [-]

That’s a plausible meaning but it erases the exceptions for diplomats and Indians that everyone agrees exist.

	▲	Breza a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		If you do crime, can you be arrested by the local police? "I have diplomatic immunity! Also I live on a reservation with their own police force. So no." It's pretty clear that's what the amendment means. The only ambiguous situation I've found is if you're born just inside American waters on your way between foreign countries, but that's a really narrow case.
	▲	sanderjd 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I don't think it does.

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2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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rootusrootus 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

In that case, the use of the word jurisdiction in the 14th Amendment is meaningless, too ambiguous to rely on. Unless we think the Constitution should be living, breathing, and adapt to the current political environment. Is that the current conservative viewpoint?

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zamadatix 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Not all originalists will hold the same views on how to deal with ambiguity in the same way not all on the living constitution side agree how ambiguity should be resolved. The takes are usually more on the "how to think about resolving the meaning" side than a "is there any meaning to resolve" side.

That said, the originalist viewpoint is usually more along the lines of "we should seek to resolve that ambiguity in context of when, why, and with which references the framers who wrote it had in mind". Most originalists are unlikely to care what an argument about the current political environment implies.

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rayiner 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Well, a word can have different meanings in different contexts but still have a clear meanings in each particular context. But I agree that “jurisdiction” doesn’t have a well defined meaning in the context of individuals being subject to the jurisdiction of a nation.

In that case, the proper approach is to look at other evidence of what the drafters meant, which is what both the majority and dissents did.

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sanderjd 2 days ago | parent [-]

This is not the only "proper approach" and what approach is proper is a hotly contested question.

But it doesn't even matter, because in this case it is very clear what the drafters intended.

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rayiner 2 days ago | parent [-]

It’s not seriously contested anymore. Originalism won and now we are just fighting about how to apply it.

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sanderjd 2 days ago | parent [-]

This is obviously not true. Everyone always wants to say "my ideology is right and this is not contested anymore" and everyone is always wrong about that.

	▲	TimorousBestie 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Insofar as originalism did “win,” it was only as a convenient signal to Mitch Mcconnell that a potential appointee would play ball. As an academic legal theory it’s entirely sterile. There’s little actual content within it and it demonstrates almost no consistent application of its supposed principles. When it ceases to deliver conservatives relatively painless victories, they’ll move on to something else.