This seems to fall under the whole “promote the general welfare” part of the Preamble of the Constitution, though perhaps the court is unaware of it.
> We the People... in order to... [do establish] this Constitution
That it doesn’t confer unlimited power is orthodox constitutional law. But the Preamble explicitly states the constitutional purposes that should guide the interpretation and exercise of the powers enumerated. And it doesn’t follow that the purposes it states are legally meaningless. The’re part of the constitutional text and inform how the powers actually conferred by the Constitution are construed. As Story commented:
“One of the best established rules of interpretation, one, which common sense and reason forbid us to overlook, is, that when the object of a power is clearly defined by its terms, or avowed in the context, it ought to be construed, so as to obtain the object, and not to defeat it. The circumstance, that so construed the power may be abused, is no answer. All powers may be abused; but are they then to be abridged by those, who are to administer them, or denied to have any operation? If the people frame a constitution, the rulers are to obey it. Neither rulers, nor any other functionaries, much less any private persons, have a right to cripple it, because it is according to their own views inconvenient, or dangerous, unwise or impolitic, of narrow limits, or of wide influence.”
The Constitution establishes the Federal government. Not state, county, city, municipal governments. It says what the Federal government is for. Not what those other levels of government are for. The Federal government isn't the government that failed to provide clean water in this case; it's not even responsible for providing city water in the first place, city governments are.
It says states can't make laws that abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens. It does not say states have to provide whatever services citizens would like to have.
"nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"
One might argue they're not required to provide water, but I'd argue this means they can't knowingly provide dangerous water laced with a neurotoxin and lie about its safety as in this case.
(And there's an "equal protection of the laws" aspect to "lead in the water supply tends to disproportionately occur in poor communities", too.)
Oh, come on.
This is tortured logic that would argue the Fourth Amendment doesn't apply to most police departments in the country and that town school boards could violate the First Amendment and have religious instruction.
States are co-sovereigns with the Feds. Your city is not. Your city's state cannot allow the local jurisdictions under it violate the Constitution either. Your town can't forbid black people from voting for mayor. etc. etc. etc.
For a concrete example:
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/390/474/
> Held: Local units with general governmental powers over an entire geographic area may not, consistently with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, be apportioned among single member districts of substantially unequal population.
> The Equal Protection Clause reaches the exercise of state power, whether exercised by the State or a political subdivision.
Not at all. The Fourth Amendment does not specify any specific level of government. It gives general requirements that apply to all levels of government.
The Fourteenth Amendment explicitly says "States". That makes a difference--or it should. Someone else upthread pointed out that the Supreme Court in Yick Wo applied it to a city municipal ordinance, so as usual, the explicit language has been ignored and the actual de facto interpretation is indeed broader.
> and that town school boards could violate the First Amendment and have religious instruction.
The First Amendment explicitly says that Congress shall make no law...and the reason for that was that, at the time, most States had established religions and they didn't want the Federal government messing with that. And yes, those States ran religious schools to indoctrinate children in their established religions.
Over time, as all those State established religions went away and as a country we became much more secular, the de facto interpretation of the First Amendment has changed, so that we now expect that local governments can't, for example, run religious schools. But any such claim would have been dismissed as nonsense by the original Framers of the amendment.
> For a concrete example
Yes, I'm aware that the Supreme Court routinely imposes its own interpretation on what the Constitution says, whether it makes sense or is consistent with the actual language or not. The one you cite was fairly mild compared to, say, Hampton Co. v. United States, or Wickard v. Filburn, or Kelo v. New London.
The Fourteenth Amendment constrains state and local government action. And the Preamble's "general Welfare" is relevant interpretive context. At the Founding, that meant the safety, prosperity, happiness, and well being of the political community.
So the question isn't whether the Constitution requires cities to provide water, but whether a city that allegedly poisons people through the water system it operates can violate constitutionally protected interests in life, liberty, or bodily integrity.
As the court's opinion points out (and as others have pointed out in this thread), there are plenty of other legal remedies that can be sought against a city government that allegedly poisons its people through its water system, including voting them out of office and bringing tort claims against them.
And "you can vote them out or sue in tort" doesn't answer the constitutional question. The availability of other remedies does not make an otherwise unconstitutional government action constitutional.
Also, the Fourteenth Amendment does considerably more than prohibit abridging privileges or immunities. It expressly prohibits states from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process and from denying equal protection.
That case was about a city ordinance (true, a city ordinance, not a State law that the city was enforcing, so that much is a fair point) that was inequitably enforced (non-Chinese got permits, Chinese didn't, with no other material facts being different). It was not the city providing a service itself.
> It expressly prohibits states from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process
This refers to civil suits or criminal prosecutions, not the government providing services.
This is about a hundred years out of date.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_R...
The Bill of Rights is just the first ten. Incorporation has been extended far further than that. Per the link:
"However, the post–Civil War era, beginning in 1865 with the Thirteenth Amendment, which declared the abolition of slavery, gave rise to the incorporation of other amendments, applying more rights to the states and people over time."
> The Constitution did not establish those other governments.
But it does constrain them. They agreed to that when they ratified the Constitution and joined the United States.
Saying that those stated purposes should inform constitutional interpretation isn't a particularly novel idea. Pretending the ratified language at the beginning of the Constitution doesn't matter because taking it seriously might be inconvenient isn't a serious position either.
The possibility that judges can abuse constitutional interpretation is an argument for doing it carefully, not selectively. Or, as Joseph Story put it: "The circumstance, that so construed the power may be abused, is no answer. All powers may be abused."
You realize much of the constitution is designed to constrain what the government can do, exactly to limit the potential for abuse? Sure, it's all great when you're using the "promote the general welfare" as an excuse to enact medicare for all or whatever, not so great when the other side decides it means abortion needs to be banned (what about the "welfare" of babies).
Nor was "general Welfare" some contentless phrase at the Founding. Protection, safety, prosperity, happiness, and the well being of the political community were all part of the contemporary vocabulary surrounding the public good. As Madison wrote in Federalist 45, “the public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people is the supreme object to be pursued”.
All government powers carry some risk of abuse. But, as Joseph Story put it, “Neither rulers, nor any other functionaries, much less any private persons, have a right to cripple it, because it is according to their own views inconvenient, or dangerous, unwise or impolitic, of narrow limits, or of wide influence.”
The OP is about a federal ruling saying clean water is not a constitutional right, no? And if you're disagreeing you're saying it should be a positive federal right in interpretation if not declaration, implying power of enforcement.