Rational basis review in the context of "Romer v. Evans"

Ballot access is rules and procedures regulating the right to candidacy, the conditions under which a candidate, political party, or ballot measure is entitled to appear on voters' ballots in elections in the United States.

The jurisprudence of the right to candidacy and right to create a political party are less clear than voting rights in the United States. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has established in multiple cases that the federal constitution does not recognize a fundamental right to candidacy, and that state governments have a legitimate government interest in blocking "frivolous or fraudulent candidacies". As election processes are decentralized by Article I, Section 4, of the United States Constitution, ballot access laws are established and enforced by the states. As a result, ballot access processes may vary from one state to another.

The legality of abortion in the United States and the various restrictions imposed on the procedure vary significantly, depending on the laws of each state or other jurisdiction, although there is no uniform federal law. Some states prohibit abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with few exceptions; others permit it up to a certain point in a woman's pregnancy, while some allow abortion throughout a woman's pregnancy. In states where abortion is legal, several classes of restrictions on the procedure may exist, such as parental consent or notification laws, requirements that patients be shown an ultrasound before obtaining an abortion, mandatory waiting periods, and counseling requirements.

From 1973 to 2022, Supreme Court rulings in Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) created, and maintained, federal protections for a pregnant woman's right to get an abortion, ensuring that states could not ban abortion prior to the point at which a fetus may be deemed viable. However, Roe and Casey were overturned by Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022), and states may now impose any regulation on abortion, provided it satisfies rational basis review and does not otherwise conflict with federal law. Prior to the Court's decision in Dobbs, many states enacted trigger laws to ban abortion, should Roe be overturned. Additionally, several states either have enacted or are in the process of enacting stricter abortion laws following Dobbs, and some have resumed enforcement of laws in effect prior to 1973. While such laws are no longer considered to violate the United States Constitution, they continue to face some legal challenges in state courts.

In U.S. constitutional law, when a law infringes upon a fundamental constitutional right, the court may apply the strict scrutiny standard. Strict scrutiny holds the challenged law as presumptively invalid unless the government can demonstrate that the law or regulation is necessary to achieve a "compelling state interest". The government must also demonstrate that the law is "narrowly tailored" to achieve that compelling purpose, and that it uses the "least restrictive means" to achieve that purpose. Failure to meet this standard will result in striking the law as unconstitutional.

Strict scrutiny is the highest and most stringent standard of judicial review in the United States and is part of the levels of judicial scrutiny that US courts use to determine whether a constitutional right or principle should give way to the government's interest against observance of the principle. The lesser standards are rational basis review and exacting or intermediate scrutiny. These standards are applied to statutes and government action at all levels of government within the United States.