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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... existing body of accepted legal materials. As Will Harris writes, “The persistent possibility of amendment inescapably implies precisely the boundedness of the constitutional order at any time.” The Constitution “could contain what it ...
... existing “community” of interpreters. Though I am primarily interested in raising our consciousness about how we construct in our constitutional discourse the boundaries between interpretation and amendment, I should note that the ...
... existing body of legal materials; 2. it is, whether a statute passed by a legislature, an executive order, or an administrative regulation, a change not disallowed by the constraints established by the Constitution and thus what might ...
... existing constitutional regime. Thus it may well be that the opposition I am insisting on is what my colleague Jack Balkin has termed a “nested opposition,”64 by which he refers to basic notions that structure our thought even as they ...
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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 |