The roots of the Living Constitution

Boston University Law Review

Volumn 92, Issue 4, 2012, Pages 1129-1160

  Balkin, Jack M ^a  

^a YALE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84866098485     PISSN: 00068047     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (68)

1. DAVID A. STRAUSS, The Living Constitution (2010).
2. Edwards v. Canada (Attorney General) [1930], A. C. 124 (P. C.) (appeal taken from S. C. C.) ("The British North America Act planted in Canada a living tree capable of growth and expansion within its natural limits.").
3. 347 U. S. 483 (1954).
4. 17 U. S. 316 (1819).
5. This is the account of living constitutionalism discussed in chapters 13 and 14 of JACK M. BALKIN, LIVING ORIGINALISM (2011).
6. See MARK A. GRABER, DRED SCOTT AND THE PROBLEM OF CONSTITUTIONAL EVIL 36 (2006) ("When public opinion on any bitterly contested issue is geographically concentrated, an institution staffed exclusively by persons elected by local constituencies is unlikely to be capable of reaching a middle ground.").
7. Jack M. Balkin, The Constitution in the National Surveillance State, 93 MINN. L. REV. 1 (2008) (describing features of the national surveillance state).
8. On the idea of a constitutional regime, see generally BRUCE ACKERMAN, WE THE PEOPLE: TRANSFORMATIONS (1998);
9. MARK V. TUSHNET, THE NEW CONSTITUTIONAL ORDER (2003);
10. KEITH E. WHITTNGTON, POLITICAL FOUNDATIONS OF JUDICIAL SUPREMACY: THE PRESIDENCY, THE SUPREME COURT, AND CONSTITUTIONAL LEADERSHIP IN U. S. HISTORY (2009).
11. See also STEPHEN SKOWRONEK, THE POLITICS PRESIDENTS MAKE: LEADERSHIP FROM JOHN ADAMS TO BILL CLINTON 50-51 (1996) (explaining regimes in terms of presidential leadership).
12. For a discussion of how "partisan entrenchment" in the judiciary leads to constitutional change, see Jack M. Balkin and Sanford Levinson, The Processes of Constitutional Change: From Partisan Entrenchment to the National Surveillance State, 75 FORDHAM L. REV. 489 (2006).
13. See the excellent discussion in AXHIL REED AMAR, AMERICA'S UNWRITTEN CONSTITUTION (forthcoming 2012) (manuscript at 51-54) (on file with author).
14. See Act of July 4, 1840, c. 45, 6 Stat. 802, accompanied by H. R. Rep. No. 86, 26th Cong., 1st Sess. (1840)
15. st Sess. 411 (May 23, 1840);
16. See generally MICHAEL KENT CURTIS, FREE SPEECH, "THE PEOPLE'S DARLING PRIVILEGE": STRUGGLES FOR FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IN AMERICAN HISTORY (2000) (describing antebellum struggles over freedom of expression).
17. DAVID M. RABBAN, FREE SPEECH IN ITS FORGOTTEN YEARS 2 (1997) ("Disputes over free speech had previously arisen in an enormous variety of contexts, ranging from political, labor, and sexual radicalism to commercial advertising and election reform. Judges, law professors, officials at all levels of government, activists, social thinkers, and diverse members of the general public addressed free speech issues throughout the decades before [World War I].").
18. See, e.g., ZECHARIAH CHAFEE, JR., FREEDOM OF SPEECH (1996) (1920);
19. Zechariah Chafee, Jr., Freedom of Speech in War Time, 32 HARV. L. REV. 932 (1919).
20. See Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105, 115 (1943) ("Freedom of press, freedom of speech, freedom of religion are in a preferred position. ");
21. Howard Gillman, Preferred Freedoms: The Progressive Expansion of State Power and the Rise of Modern Civil Liberties Jurisprudence, 47 POL. RES. Q. 623 (1994);
22. G. Edward White, The First Amendment Comes of Age: The Emergence of Free Speech in Twentieth-Century America, 95 MICH. L. REV. 299, 327-42 (1996) (tracing the history of the preferred liberty idea in the 1930s and 1940s).
23. 478 U. S. 186 (1985).
24. 539 U. S. 558 (2003).
25. See Douglas NeJaime, Winning Through Losing, 96 IOWA L. REV. 941, 985-89 (2011) ("[T]he Bowers defeat increased grassroots mobilization, fundraising, and organizational founding, all of which proved vital to a stronger LGBT-rights movement.").
26. 554 U. S. 570 (2008).
27. See Reva B. Siegel, Dead or Alive: Originalism as Popular Constitutionalism in Heller, 122 HARV. L. REV. 191, 192 (2008) ("Heller's originalism enforces understandings of the Second Amendment that were forged in the late twentieth century through popular constitutionalism.").
28. See Adam Winkler, Scrutinizing the Second Amendment, 105 MICH. L. REV. 683, 686 (2007) (counting forty-two states that currently recognize an individual right).
29. 10 M. & W. 109
30. 152 Eng. Rep. 402 (ex. 1842).
31. 111 N. E. 1050 (N. Y. 1916).
32. 163 U. S. 537 (1895).
33. 347 U. S. 483 (1953);
34. Strauss does not mention Gong Lum v. Rice, 275 U. S. 78(1927), which reaffirmed separate but equal and applied it to public schools. Id. at 87 (holding that maintaining separate schools for "white pupils and the pupils of the yellow races... is within the discretion of the state in regulating its public schools and does not conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment").
35. 410 U. S. 113 (1972).
36. City of Akron v. Akron Ctr. for Reprod. Health, 462 U. S. 416, 454, 459 (1983) (O'Connor, J., dissenting).
37. 505 U. S. 833 (1992).
38. 492 U. S. 490 (1989).
39. Casey, 505 U. S. at 857.
40. BARRY FRIEDMAN, THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE: HOW PUBLIC OPINION HAS INFLUENCED THE SUPREME COURT AND SHAPED THE MEANING OF THE CONSTITUTION 328-29 (2009) (describing shift in public attitudes and mobilization of pro-choice forces in the years between Webster and Casey);
41. Clyde Wilcox, The Sources and Consequences of Public Attitudes Toward Abortion, in PERSPECTIVES ON THE POLITICS OF ABORTION 58-60 (Ted Jensen ed., 1995) (showing that Webster stimulated organization and fundraising by prochoice groups and led to the election of pro-choice politicians).
42. Casey, 505 U. S. at 879 ("Our adoption of the undue burden analysis does not disturb the central holding of Roe v. Wade, and we reaffirm that holding.").
43. See generally CHARLES R. EPP, THE RIGHTS REVOLUTION: LAWYERS, ACTIVISTS, AND SUPREME COURTS IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE (1998) (showing how litigation campaigns are crucial to the protection of rights in a range of different countries);
44. STEVEN M. TELES, THE RISE OF THE CONSERVATIVE LEGAL MOVEMENT: THE BATTLE FOR CONTROL OF THE LAW (2008) (explaining the role of civil-society organizations in shaping American constitutional law).
45. (citing THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES: ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION app. at 2245-52 (Johnny H. Killian & George A Costello eds., 1996) (appendix prepared by the Congressional Research Service, compiling "Supreme Court Decisions Overruled by Subsequent Decisions" and listing eighty-eight cases overruling precedents pre-Warren and forty-five from the Warren years)).
46. EARL WARREN, THE MEMOIRS OF EARL WARREN 306 (1977).
47. Indeed, in Colegrove v. Green, 328 U. S. 549(1946), decided just fifteen years before Baker, the Court held that the federal judiciary could not interfere in state decisions about legislative apportionment.
48. see Bruce Ackerman & Jennifer Nou, Canonizing the Civil Rights Revolution: The People and the Poll Tax, 103 NW. U. L. REV. 63 (2009).
49. 369 U. S. 186 (1961).
50. LUCAS A. POWE, THE WARREN COURT IN AMERICAN POLITICS 203-04 (2001).
51. 377 U. S. 533 (1963).
52. 377 U. S. 533 (1963).
53. 376 U. S. 1 (1963).
54. HARRY KALVEN, THE NEGRO AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT (1965) (explaining how civil rights struggles produced greater protections for freedom of speech);
55. Michael Klarman, The Racial Origins of Modern Criminal Procedure, 99 MICH. L. REV. 48 (2000) (tracing influence of demands for racial equality on the development of constitutional rights of criminal procedure).
56. David A. Strauss, The Modernizing Mission of Judicial Review, 76 U. CHI. L. REV. 859 (2009) [hereinafter Strauss, Modernizing Mission];
57. David A. Strauss, Modernization and Representation Reinforcement: An Essay in Memory of John Hart Ely, 57 STAN. L. REV. 761 (2004) [hereinafter Strauss, Modernization and Representation Reinforcement].
58. Strauss, Modernizing Mission, supra note 89, at 861.
59. David A. Strauss, Is Carolene Products Obsolete?, 2010 U. ILL. L. REV. 1251 [hereinafter Strauss, Is Carolene Products Obsolete?];
60. Strauss, Modernization and Representation Reinforcement, supra note 89, at 762.
61. United States v. Carolene Prods. Co, 304 U. S. 144, 152-53 & n. 4 (1938).
62. JOHN HART ELY, DEMOCRACY AND DISTRUST: A THEORY OF JUDICIAL REVIEW (1980).
63. Citizens United v. Fed. Election Comm'n, 130 S. Ct. 876 (2010).
64. Lucas A. Powe, Jr., Does Carotene Products Describe?, 11 CONST. COMMENT. 197, 209-12 (1994).
65. Jack M. Balkin, What Brown Teaches Us About Constitutional Theory, 90 VA. L. REV. 1537, 1538 (2004) ("Lesson One: The Supreme Court is not Countermajoritarian; it is Nationalist.").
66. See Parents Involved in Cmty. Sch. v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1, 551 U. S. 701 (2007) (striking down race-conscious plans by Seattle and Louisville school boards designed to promote racial integration).
67. See Crawford v. Marion Cnty. Election Bd., 553 U. S. 181 (2008) (upholding Indiana photo identification law).
68. See JENNIFER NEDELSKY, PRIVATE PROPERTY AND THE LIMITS OF AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONALISM: THE MADISONIAN FRAMEWORK AND ITS LEGACY (1994).