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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... procedure can easily (and often properly) be “deconstructed.” It is, however, a distinction that we in fact cannot do without, as a pragmatic matter, which is how it is used in the text above. 8 See Dillon v. Gloss, 256 U.S. 358, 374–75 ...
... procedure of amendment. 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 ...
... procedure for legitimation. Thus I ask the reader to submit to a multiple-choice question regarding the number of amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and I go on to argue that one cannot, or at least should not, answer this question by ...
... procedures for 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 ...
... procedures necessary to legitimate them. Interpretation and Amendment Acquaintance with the ordinary operations of the American legal system makes us aware of the crucial contrast typically offered between ordinary development by ...
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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 |