Constitutional law attorneys handle cases involving the construction and interpretation of federal and state constitutions, including individual rights and governmental powers. Constitutional law cases can involve issues like First Amendment rights -- such as freedom of speech, press, and religion -- and the checks and balances on authority among different branches of government. Most of the federal constitutional rights are found in the Bill of Rights, that was created originally as a limitation on the action by the federal government, but many of those rights are also applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.
Ballentine is an unincorporated community in Richland County, South Carolina, United States. It is part of the Columbia, South Carolina Metropolitan Statistical Area. The town was recently in the planning stages of being incorporated. Ballentine would be the seventh incorporated community in Richland County if it were to be incorporated. It would be the first created in the area since Arcadia Lakes was formed in 1959, according to the Municipal Association of South Carolina. The town would have had a population of about 2,500 people, however, the recent vote for incorporation was not successful.. The town's desire to incorporate was partially driven by the encroachment of nearby Irmo, South Carolina. Ballentine is located on Lake Murray, a large reservoir formed in the 1930s by the Dreher Shoals Dam, which at the time was the largest earthen dam in the world. Ballentine refers to itself on the signs leading into town as "The Gateway To Lake Murray". The community experienced much growth during the late twentieth century, sparked by the combination of its lakefront location and its proximity to the city of Columbia. In the twenty-first century, Ballentine has been transformed by the addition of two large, new, middle-class subdivisions and by some new commercial development as well as a new elementary school. It is now an affluent suburb of Columbia although it maintains something of a rural feel in many areas.