Download or read book Perfecting the Constitution written by Darren Patrick Guerra and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2013-06-10 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He who can change the Constitution controls the Constitution. So who does control the Constitution? The answer has always been: “the people.” The people control the Constitution via the Article V amending process outlined in the Constitution itself. Changes can only be made through Article V and its formal procedures. Article V has always provided a means of perfecting the Constitution in an explicit, democratically authentic, prudent, and deliberative manner. In addition to changing the Constitution Article V also allowed the people to perfect and preserve their Constitution at the same time. In recent years Article V has come under attack by influential legal scholars who criticize it for being too difficult, undemocratic, and too formal. Such scholars advocate for ignoring Article V in favor of elite adaptation of the Constitution or popular amendment through national referendums. In making their case, critics also assume that Article V is an unimportant and expendable part of the Constitutional structure. One notable scholar called the Constitution “imbecilic” because of Article V. This book shows that, to the contrary, Article V is a unique and powerful extension of the American tradition of written constitutionalism. It was a logical extension of American constitutional development and it was a powerful tool used by the Federalists to argue for ratification of the new Constitution. Since then it has served as a means of “perfecting” the US Constitution for over 200 years via a wide range of amendments. Contrary to contemporary critics, the historical evidence shows Article V to be a vital element in the Constitutional architecture, not an expendable or ancillary piece. This book defends Article V against critics by showing that it is neither too difficult, undemocratic, nor too formal. Furthermore, a positive case is made that Article V remains the most clear and powerful way to register the sovereign desires of the American public with regard to alterations of their fundamental law. In the end, Article V is an essential bulwark to maintaining a written Constitution that secures the rights of the people against both elites and themselves.
Download or read book Nature of the Amending Process written by Homer Stillé Cummings and published by . This book was released on 1938 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Amending Process and Constitutional Amendments in the Constitution written by K. C. Markandan and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Responding to Imperfection written by Sanford Levinson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1995-01-24 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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. The contributors include Bruce Ackerman, Akhil Reed Amar, Mark E. Brandon, David R. Dow, Stephen M. Griffin, Stephen Holmes and Cass R. Sunstein, Sanford Levinson, Donald Lutz, Walter Murphy, Frederick Schauer, John R. Vile, and Noam J. Zohar.
Download or read book Amending America If We Love the Constitution So Much Why Do We Keep Trying to Change It written by Richard B. Bernstein and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2022-09-25 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of how the Constitution has been reshaped over the past 200 years to meet America’s changing needs. Since 1789, 27 amendments were adopted — creating the Bill of Rights, banning liquor, protecting the right to vote and reworking how we choose presidents and senators — and more than 10,000 failed. Proposed amendments tried to stave off the Civil War and then wrote its results into the Constitution. “[A] thoughtful history of the Amendments to the Constitution... An excellent delineation of issues debated by modern constitutional scholars.” — Kirkus “[A] sober, straightforward history of the process of amending the Constitution” — Publishers Weekly “[A] comprehensive and engaging study of Article V’s procedures for amending the constitution.” — Washington Post “The authors capture the essence of the importance of the amending process in a highly readable, gracefully written book... This book, which discusses knotty legal and constitutional issues without stuffiness and in plain language, should be easy reading for students and laypersons.” — The Journal of American History “[A] readable, intelligently organized, and well-informed history of how and why the Constitution has been amended.” — The Historian “[S]cholarly and readable.” — Human Rights “Bernstein’s work is engaging and stimulating... he is to be commended for explaining so carefully just how complex a set of questions and problems cluster around Article 5.” — The American Historical Review “Well written... this volume fills an important gap in the current literature and is likely to be the standard account of amending history for some time to come.” — The American Journal of Legal History “[A] masterful book, daring in its scope and impeccable in its execution. Amending America is a great work of scholarship that does justice to the United States Constitution as a living and evolving document. It is a tribute to the working of American democracy, and contributes to our understanding of its evolution and its unfinished agenda.” — Vartan Gregorian, President, Brown University “A magnificent treasure trove of American history, which brings to life why our Constitution has remained a ‘living document’ for over two centuries. Amending America is a wonderful book for anyone interested in our country.” — Arthur R. Miller, Bruce Bromley Professor of Law, Harvard Law School “Amending America is invaluable for just about anybody seeking to understand the contradictions of our approach to constitutional government. With grace, insight, and considerable information, Bernstein and Agel have written what should be the standard work for a long time to come.” — Herbert S. Parmet, Distinguished Professor of History, City University of New York, author of Richard Nixon and His America “Amending America admirably illuminates the complex and remarkable history of the American people’s repeated attempts to amend the Constitution, and captures that history’s enduring significance. Written with scholarship, clarity, and grace, this book recovers a previously neglected dimension of American constitutional history.” — William E. Nelson, Professor of Law, New York University, author of The Fourteenth Amendment: From Political Principle to Judicial Doctrine “Instructive and fascinating. The book is thorough, erudite, and packed with the anecdotes that make our political past so enjoyable to review.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune “An intelligent, carefully researched, and highly readable account.” — Detroit News
Download or read book Conventional Wisdom written by John R. Vile and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vile surveys more than two centuries of scholarship on Article V and concludes that the weight of the evidence indicates that states and Congress have the legal right to limit the scope of such conventions to a single subject and that political considerations would make a runaway convention unlikely.
Download or read book The United States constitution Should it be altered to make it easier to amend written by Patrick Spieß and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2014-06-11 with total page 15 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Politics - Region: USA, grade: 1,7, University of Leeds, course: United States Politics, language: English, abstract: Although it is difficult to prove, the constitution of the United States of America is considered to be one of the most difficult constitution's to amend, as the political scientist Donald Lutz point out (Lutz 1994). Therefore the question arise whether there is a need to alter the amendment procedure, which is enshrined in Article V. First I will give general ideas of Article V and outline the difficulties that making amendments difficult. Then I will look at arguments against making amendments easier. Following this, I will argue in favour of making amendments easier. My main argumentation will be based on the assumption that not the supermajority rule is the problem, but the inner logic of Article V itself. Finally I will examine reform proposals, which could solve the problem.
Download or read book Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States to Provide a Procedure by which the States May Propose Constitutional Amendments written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on the Constitution and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Difficulty of the Amendment Process of the Constitution of the United States of America and Freedom of Speech and Its Limits written by Renate Bagossy and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2008-08 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 2,0, Martin Luther University (Institut f r Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: The American Constitution: Past and Present, 13 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: From the beginning on Americans have proclaimed liberty, have fought wars in its name have evaluated events and institutions and politics in the light of liberty. They were convinced that they are free people and they always wanted to serve as a model for the rest of the world. Besides the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, ratified on the 17th of September 1787, is the fundamental document that symbolizes this freedom and that serves as a legal basis of the juridical system of the United States. This original document does not include speech freedom and freedom of the press, which are two of the most important liberties a free nation should have. The Bill of Rights that includes these liberties was added later, as amendments to the original document. However, the Constitution and its amendments serve as more or less strict guidelines, as the text is not unambiguous. It is difficult to interpret the twisted language of it and as I will show in this work, the opinions reach from one extreme to the other. Justices of the Supreme Court play a leading role in interpreting the Constitution, therefore a lot of juridical cases deal directly or indirectly with the interpretation of the Constitution and are a subject of this term paper. In this term paper I am going to show how the original Constitution was finally ratified, and how difficult it is to change this document. The aim of the Framers was to make the changing of the Constitution as challenging as possible. The difficulty of the amendment process is explained with the help of an example; The Equal Rights Amendment. After discussing the basis of the amendment process I will analyze how freedom of speech and freedo
Download or read book Ratification of Constitutional Amendments by Popular Vote written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary and published by . This book was released on 1938 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendments written by Yaniv Roznai and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can constitutional amendments be unconstitutional? Using theoretical and comparative approaches, Roznai establishes the nature and scope of constitutional amendment powers by focusing on substantive limitations, looking at their prevalence in practice and the conceptual coherence of the very idea of limitations to constitutional amendment powers.
Download or read book The Amending of the Federal Constitution written by Lester Bernhardt Orfield and published by . This book was released on 2012-06-01 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book How Failed Attempts to Amend the Constitution Mobilize Political Change written by Roger C. Hartley and published by Vanderbilt University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-30 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the Constitution's ratification, members of Congress, following Article V, have proposed approximately twelve thousand amendments, and states have filed several hundred petitions with Congress for the convening of a constitutional convention. Only twenty-seven amendments have been approved in 225 years. Why do members of Congress continue to introduce amendments at a pace of almost two hundred a year? This book is a demonstration of how social reformers and politicians have used the amendment process to achieve favorable political results even as their proposed amendments have failed to be adopted. For example, the ERA "failed" in the sense that it was never ratified, but the mobilization to ratify the ERA helped build the feminist movement (and also sparked a countermobilization). Similarly, the Supreme Court's ban on compulsory school prayer led to a barrage of proposed amendments to reverse the Court. They failed to achieve the requisite two-thirds support from Congress, but nevertheless had an impact on the political landscape. The definition of the relationship between Congress and the President in the conduct of foreign policy can also be traced directly to failed efforts to amend the Constitution during the Cold War. Roger Hartley examines familiar examples like the ERA, balanced budget amendment proposals, and pro-life attempts to overturn Roe v. Wade, but also takes the reader on a three-century tour of lesser-known amendments. He explains how often the mere threat of calling a constitutional convention (at which anything could happen) effected political change.
Download or read book Why ERA Failed written by Mary Frances Berry and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1988-02-22 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why ERA Failed looks at the systemic problems of politics and the amending process. The author, Mary Frances Berry, considers the behavior of the two sides from the perspective of a historian and lawyer. She describes the history of the amending process, from the Constitutional Convention to the present day, and its application to the struggles for amendments concerned with the status of blacks after the Civil War, income tax, prohibition, child labor, and woman suffrage. Berry concludes that ERA approval was problematic at best and defeat predictable. Supporters did too little of what is required for ratification of a substantive proposal too late. Furthermore, the large number of state ratifications gained was deceptive. Support was eroding instead of increasing in the final stages of the campaign.
Download or read book Constitutional Amendments written by Richard Albert and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-15 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Constitutional Amendments: Making, Breaking, and Changing Constitutions is both a roadmap for navigating the intellectual universe of constitutional amendments and a blueprint for building and improving the rules of constitutional change. Drawing from dozens of constitutions in every region of the world, this book blends theory with practice to answer two all-important questions: what is an amendment and how should constitutional designers structure the procedures of constitutional change? The first matters now more than ever. Reformers are exploiting the rules of constitutional amendment, testing the limits of legal constraint, undermining the norms of democratic government, and flouting the constitution as written to create entirely new constitutions that masquerade as ordinary amendments. The second question is central to the performance and endurance of constitutions. Constitutional designers today have virtually no resources to guide them in constructing the rules of amendment, and scholars do not have a clear portrait of the significance of amendment rules in the project of constitutionalism. This book shows that no part of a constitution is more important than the procedures we use change it. Amendment rules open a window into the soul of a constitution, exposing its deepest vulnerabilities and revealing its greatest strengths. The codification of amendment rules often at the end of the text proves that last is not always least.
Download or read book Constitutionalism and the Rule of Law written by Maurice Adams and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-02 with total page 559 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rule of law and constitutionalist ideals are understood by many, if not most, as necessary to create a just political order. Defying the traditional division between normative and positive theoretical approaches, this book explores how political reality on the one hand, and constitutional ideals on the other, mutually inform and influence each other. Seventeen chapters from leading international scholars cover a diverse range of topics and case studies to test the hypothesis that the best normative theories, including those regarding the role of constitutions, constitutionalism and the rule of law, conceive of the ideal and the real as mutually regulating.
Download or read book Need for a More Democratic Procedure of Amending the Federal Constitution written by Seba Eldridge and published by . This book was released on 1915 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
