Responding to Imperfection: The Theory and Practice of Constitutional AmendmentSanford Levinson An increasing number of constitutional theorists, within both the legal academy and university departments of government, are focusing on the conceptual and political problems attached to the notion of constitutional amendment. Amendments are, among other things, recognitions of the imperfection of existing schemes of government. The relative ease or difficulty of amendment has significant implications for the ways that governments respond to problems that call either for new structures of governance or new powers for already established structures. This book brings together essays by leading legal authorities and political scientists on a range of questions from whether the U.S. Constitution is subject to amendment by procedures other than those authorized by Article V to how significant change is conceptualized within classical rabbinic Judaism. Though the essays are concerned for the most part with the American experience, other constitutional traditions are considered as well. |
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... allowed me to organize panels over a four-year period that explored various aspects of the issues surrounding constitutional change and the notion of “amendment.” Several of the papers in this volume were first presented in that venue ...
... allows us to accept them as legitimate, with a legal integrity equal to those (other) amendments that have followed the route set out by Article V. Ackerman especially is insistent that such a narrative is available, and he sketches its ...
... allow only regulation that Congress can reasonably believe contributes to the facilitation of a smoothly flowing and flourishing national economy); or “the President may declare limited war on relatively insignificant foreign countries ...
... allowing German troops to join international alliances.”12 In many contexts, therefore, to describe something as an amendment is at the same time to proclaim its status as a legal invention and its putative illegitimacy as an ...
... allowing California's “electors” to “amend the Constitution by initiative,” goes on to require that a “revision” of ... allowed governmental actors by the Constitution; 1107, 118 (review of Philip Bobbitt, Constitutional Interpretation) ...
Other editions - View all
Responding to Imperfection: The Theory and Practice of Constitutional Amendment Sanford Levinson No preview available - 1995 |
Responding to Imperfection: The Theory and Practice of Constitutional Amendment Sanford Levinson No preview available - 1995 |