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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... given legal order? These are, obviously, analytically separable questions—one is descriptive, the other normative. Both are, however, central to this book. As Washington noted, the framers of the Constitution themselves indirectly. 3 The ...
... Given the frequency with which Article V will be cited in the articles below, it is probably most efficient to set it out in full here (and, concomitantly, to ask the reader to return here when necessary in order to consult the specific ...
... Given a union of fifty states, that meant that three-quarters of these states, in a process extending from 1789 to 1992, had ratified it. Several commentators, supported by dictum in a significant case decided in 1921 by the U.S. ...
... given that the alternative seems to be a dead Constitution, an option that has few, if any, public supporters. Still, as Justice Rehnquist once said, “The phrase 'living Constitution' has about it a teasing impression that makes it a ...
... given change. 7 Ullmann v. United States, 350 U.S. 422,428 (1956). See Peter Suber, The Paradox of Self-Amendment (New York: Peter Lang Pub., 1990), p. 163. 8 See Philip Bobbitt, Constitutional Fate (New York: Oxford University Press ...
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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 |