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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... the Once and Future Polity Walter F. Murphy Nine The Case against Implicit Limits on the Constitutional Amending Process John R. Vile ix 13 37 63 89 117 145 163 191 Ten The “Original” Thirteenth Amendment and the Limits to Formal Contents.
... Formal Constitutional Change Mark E. Brandon Eleven Toward a Theory of Constitutional Amendment Donald S. Lutz Twelve The Politics of Constitutional Revision in Eastern Europe Stephen Holmes and Cass R. Sunstein Thirteen Midrash ...
... Formal interpretation begins after the recognition of something as the Constitution. Another set of essays—those by Mark Brandon, Walter Murphy, and John Vile—cluster around the issue of substantive limits to constitutional amendments ...
... formal amendment as found in the constitutions of the fifty American states and in a number of foreign countries. He uses this data to construct an “Index of Difficulty” in regard to formal change and then suggests that those systems ...
... formal amendment too difficult will inevitably develop alternative routes toward achieving necessary transformations, including latitudinarian conceptions of permissible “interpretation.” As Suber notes, though, “the debate has shifted ...
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 |