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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... transformations—and not simply the product of what was truly immanent within the Constitution—they must be the product of a distinctive birth process of their own. One label we might apply to these transformations is “amendment ...
... transformations, including latitudinarian conceptions of permissible “interpretation.” As Suber notes, though, “the debate has shifted from [the] occurrence [of amendment by interpretation] to its desireability and legitimacy” (ibid ...
... transformation, we can finesse the question of inherent limits on constitutional amendment. Consider the fact that a number of states in the western United States, which include the popular initiative as a process of constitutional ...
... transformation of, what is immanent through amendatory change. We come now to the implication of the term amendatory change, consideration of which will benefit from a return to the controversy about the United States Bank already ...
... transformation comes by implicitly adding to Congress's powers the ability to regulate everything that is not specifically named in the Bill of Rights.45 If one accepts the more moderate version of the Hamilton-Wilson. 42 The Federalist ...
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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 |