A constitution of many minds: Why the founding document doesn't mean what it meant before

A Constitution of Many Minds: Why the Founding Document Doesn't Mean What It Meant Before

Volumn , Issue , 2009, Pages 1-225

  Sunstein, Cass R ^a,b  

^a HARVARD LAW SCHOOL   (United States)

^b Office of Regulation and Information Policy in the Obama administration   (United States)

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EID: 84890579321     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: None     Document Type: Book

References (257)

1. The Federalist No. 49 (Madison).
2. Letter of Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval (June 12, 1816), available at http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=459.
3. See Gerald Rosenberg, The Hollow Hope (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).
4. See Bruce A. Ackerman, We the People, vol. 1, Foundations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993).
5. See the provocative and highly illuminating discussion in Sanford Levinson, Our Undemocratic Constitution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).
6. The qualification is needed because we could imagine that the original understanding would require courts to pay attention, on some occasions, to traditions or public convictions. Indeed, the cruel and unusual punishment clause is often seen as an example.
7. James Surowieki, The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies, and Nations (New York: Doubleday, 2004).
8. See Larry Kramer, The People Themselves (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).
9. See Scott Page, The Difference 209-10 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006).
10. Some of the tale is told in Michael J. Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).
11. See, e.g., Mark Tushnet, Taking the Constitution Away from the Courts (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).
12. See James Bradley Thayer, The Origin and Scope of the American Doctrine of Constitutional Law, 7 Harv. L. Rev. 129 (1893).
13. For the best treatment, see Adrian Vermeule, Judging under Uncertainty (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006). Vermeule explores the relationship between Thayerism and many minds arguments in a brilliant essay, see Adrian Vermeule, Common Law Constitutionalism and the Limits of Reason, 107 Colum. L. Rev. 1482 (2007). I have been much influenced by Vermeule's work on these topics.
14. I put to one side the evident fact that Thayerism is not a complete account of constitutional interpretation. We might agree that courts should strike down statutes only when the violation of the Constitution is clear; but how do we know when the violation is clear? To work, Thayerism needs to be supplemented by some kind of account of constitutional meaning.
15. Antonin Scalia, A Matter of Interpretation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).
16. See Stephen Breyer, Active Liberty (New York: Knopf, 2005).
17. See Cass R. Sunstein, One Case at a Time (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999).
18. See Dworkin, Law's Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985);.
19. James Fleming, Securing Constitutional Democracy: The Case of Autonomy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006).
20. I bracket potential conflicts between Olympian practices and democratic self-government, on the ground that by hypothesis, Olympian judges create no such conflicts.
21. See Vermeule, Judging under Uncertainty.
22. See Scalia, A Matter of Interpretation.
23. See Cass R. Sunstein, Radicals in Robes (New York: Basic Books, 2006), for an elaboration.
24. See Richard A. Posner, Law, Pragmatism, and Democracy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002).
25. See the discussion of Justice Thomas's views in Sunstein, Radicals in Robes.
26. The idea of constitutional interpretation outside of courts is explored from various angles in Fleming, Securing Constitutional Democracy, and Cass R. Sunstein, The Partial Constitution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993).
27. See, e.g., Saikrishna Prakash, Radicals in Tweed Jackets: Why Left-Wing Law Professors Are Wrong for America, 106 Colum. L. Rev. 2207 (2007).
28. See Scalia, A Matter of Interpretation.
29. See Antonin Scalia, Originalism: The Lesser Evil, 57 U. Cin. L. Rev. 849 (1989). See Vermeule, Judging under Uncertainty, for illuminating discussion of the considerations involved in the selection of a theory of interpretation; I have been much influenced by that discussion here.
30. Available at http://legalaffairs.org/webexclusive/debateclub_cie0505.msp.
31. See Dworkin, Law's Empire.
32. See Ronald Dworkin, Freedom's Law: The Moral Reading of the American Constitution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001).
33. In federal courts, the authority to engage in such surveillance has been asserted for thirty-five years. United States v. Clay, 430 F.2d 165 (5th Cir. 1970). The practice of "national security surveillance" has been traced to a decision of the Eisenhower administration in 1954. See Morgan Cloud, The Bugs in Our System, New York Times, January 13, 2006, at A21.
34. See United States v. Truong Dinh Hung, 629 F.2d 908, 912-16 (4th Cir. 1980); United States v. Buck, 548 F.2d 871, 875-76 (9th Cir. 1977); United States v. Butenko, 494 F.2d 593 (3d Cir. 1974); United States v. Brown, 484 F.2d 418, 426 (5th Cir. 1973); In re Sealed Case, 310 F.3d 717 (FISA Ct. Rev. 2002).
35. See, e.g., Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 378 (2003) (Thomas, J., dissenting) (invoking principle of color-blindness as basis for attack on race-conscious admissions policy).
36. See, e.g., Cent. Hudson Gas & Elec. Co. v. Pub. Serv. Comm'n, 447 U.S. 557 (1980).
37. See, e.g., Penn Cent. Transp. Co. v. New York City, 438 U.S. 104, 138-50 (1978) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (calling for greater protection against regulatory takings). On the difficulty of finding historical support for this position, see John F. Hart, Land Use Law in the Early Republic and the Original Meaning of the Takings Clause, 94 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1099 (2000) (arguing that on the original understanding, regulatory takings did not offend the clause).
38. See, e.g., 44 Liquormart, Inc. v. Rhode Island, 517 U.S. 484, 522-24 (1996) (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment) (arguing for broad protection of commercial advertising).
39. For evidence, see, for example, Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905), and Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U.S. 525 (1923). The Court's opinions spoke in terms of the ideal of liberty, rather than in terms of the original understanding, established traditions, or clear precedents.
40. See, e.g., Penn Cent., 438 U.S. at 138-50 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting).
41. 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
42. See Gerald J. Postema, Bentham and the Common Law Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).
43. 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
44. See, e.g., Frederick Schauer, Free Speech: A Philosophical Inquiry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).
45. See Cass R. Sunstein, Incompletely Theorized Agreements, 108 Harv. L. Rev. 1733 (1993).
46. John Rawls, Political Liberalism 147-48 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).
47. Of course some such commitments are rightly placed out of bounds as a foundation for constitutional law; consider the commitment to slavery or to oppression of religious minorities.
48. Hon. John G. Roberts, Jr., Chief Justice, U.S. Supreme Court, Commencement Address at the Georgetown University Law Center (May 21, 2006).
49. See, e.g., Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200 (1995); City of Richmond v. Croson, 488 U.S. 469 (1989). Notably, the Court has converged on a kind of rule, at least for educational institutions: one that forbids quotas and point systems but permits case-by-case judgments that include consideration of race. Grutter, 539 U.S. 306.
50. See Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992).
51. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 594-97 (1951) (Frankfurter, J., concurring).
52. See, e.g., United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996) (offering a theoretical account of the problem of sex discrimination). It is important to be careful with these comparisons. Justice Ginsburg believes in small steps and has occasional Burkean inclinations. See, e.g., Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Some Thoughts on Autonomy and Equality in Relation to Roe v. Wade, 63 N.C. L. Rev. 375 (1985) (criticizing Roe v. Wade for proceeding too rapidly).
53. Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 266-67 (1962) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting).
54. Hamdan, 126 S. Ct. 2749 (2006).
55. Burke, Reflections, at 442.
56. Lochner, 198 U.S. 45.
57. Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165, 169 (1952).
58. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 149 n. 14 (1968).
59. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 501 (1965) (Harlan, J., concurring in the judgment).
60. Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702 (1997) (emphasizing the need to apply the due process clause by reference to established traditions).
61. Insofar as Justice Scalia has emphasized the need to permit traditional morals regulation, he has made strongly Burkean arguments. See, e.g., Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 586-98 (Scalia, J., dissenting).
62. See, e.g., Van Orden, 545 U.S. 677 (Rehnquist, C.J., plurality opinion).
63. 518 U.S. 515 (1996).
64. Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620, 633 (1996).
65. See Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U.S. 110 (1989) (Scalia, J., plurality opinion).
66. See, e.g., Van Orden, 545 U.S. 677 (Rehnquist, C.J., plurality opinion).
67. See Newdow, 542 U.S. at 26-33 (Rehnquist, C.J., concurring in the judgment).
68. See, e.g., Youngstown, 343 U.S. at 594-95 ((Frankfurter, J., concurring); City of Chicago v. Morales, 527 U.S. 41, 64-69 (1999) (O'Connor, J., concurring).
69. See, e.g., Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677 (1973); Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645 (1972); Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71 (1971). Rebecca Brown, Tradition and Insight, 103 Yale L.J. 177 (1993), might well be understood as a general defense of rationalist minimalism.
70. Heckler v. Mathews, 465 U.S. 728, 750 (1984) (citing Miss. Univ. for Women v. Hogan, 458 U.S. 718, 725 (1982)).
71. Miller v. Albright, 523 U.S. 420, 442 (1998) (Stevens, J., plurality opinion) (quoting Califano v. Goldfarb, 430 U.S. 199, 223 (1977) (Stevens, J., concurring in the judgment).
72. Heckler, 465 U.S. at 750.
73. Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964).
74. 531 U.S. 98 (2000).
75. See Phil C. Neal, Baker v. Carr: Politics in Search of Law, 1962 Sup. Ct. Rev. 252 (1962).
76. 539 U.S. 558 (2003).
77. See, e.g., County of Allegheny v. ACLU, 492 U.S. 573 (1989).
78. Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U.S. 677 (2005) (Rehnquist, C.J., plurality opinion).
79. Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 579-80 (O'Connor, J., concurring in the judgment).
80. 478 U.S. 186 (1986).
81. See Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507, 674 (2006) (Thomas, J., dissenting).
82. E.g., Laurence H. Tribe and Michael L. Dorf, On Reading the Constitution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991).
83. Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U.S. 110, 127 n. 6 (1989).
84. See, e.g., New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 (1992).
85. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971) and Rawls, Political Liberalism, might be understood in these terms, however "abstract" they are often taken to be.
86. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 610 (1952) (Frankfurter, J., concurring).
87. See John Hart Ely, War and Responsibility (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).
88. Scalia, Originalism, 864.
89. Stephen B. Presser, Touting Thomas, Legal Aff., January-February 2005, at 68.
90. 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
91. See W. Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 646 (1943) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting); Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 266 (1962) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting).
92. See, e.g., Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992). Casey of course preserved Roe v. Wade, a decision of the Burger Court rather than theWarren Court; but Roe is appropriately placed within the general line of doctrine that the Warren Court inaugurated. See Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965).
93. See, e.g.,West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379 (1937) (upholding minimum wage legislation against due process clause challenge); NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1 (1937) (upholding National Labor Relations Act against commerce clause challenge).
94. For a very different view, see Ackerman, Foundations (arguing that the New Deal period should be regarded as a constitutional moment, not as a return to any tradition).
95. See Steven B. Epstein, Rethinking the Constitutionality of Ceremonial Deism, 96 Colum. L. Rev. 2083, 2084-87 (1996).
96. County of Allegheny, 492 U.S. at 595-96; Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 716 (1984).
97. Leon R. Kass, The Wisdom of Repugnance, in Leon R. Kass and James Q. Wilson, The Ethics of Human Cloning 3, 19 (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 1998).
98. E.g., Lynch, 465 U.S. at 698 (Brennan, J., dissenting). For a superb discussion, see Martha C. Nussbaum, Liberty of Conscience (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008).
99. Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Path of the Law, 10 Harv. L. Rev. 457, 469 (1897).
100. Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, 76 (1905) (Holmes, J., dissenting).
101. The Federalist No. 14 (James Madison), at 72.
102. Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval (July 12, 1816), in The Portable Thomas Jefferson 552, 559 (Merrill D. Peterson ed.) (New York: Penguin, 1977). Note, however, that Jefferson is speaking of experience, not of a priori reasoning (or "book-reading").
103. Blaise Pascal, Preface to the Treatise on Vacuum, in Thoughts, Letters, and Minor Works 444, 449 (Charles W. Eliot ed., M. L. Booth et al. trans.) (1910).
104. Jeremy Bentham, Handbook of Political Fallacies 43-53 (Harold Larabee ed.) (New York: Octagon Books, 1952).
105. See Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 572.
106. See, e.g., Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004); Dames & Moore v. Regan, 453 U.S. 654 (1981); Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942). For lower court decisions in the same vein from various stages in recent history, see, for example, Made in the USA Found. v. United States, 242 F.3d 1300 (11th Cir. 2001); Am. Int'l Group, Inc. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 657 F.2d 430 (D.C. Cir. 1981); United States v. Allocco, 305 F.2d 704 (2d Cir. 1962).
107. Youngstown, 343 U.S. at 610-11 (Frankfurter, J., concurring).
108. See Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428, 443 (2000).
109. On adaptive preferences, see Jon Elster, Sour Grapes (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983);.
110. Cass R. Sunstein, Free Markets and Social Justice 256-58 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997);.
111. Gary Blasi and John T. Jost, System Justification Theory and Research: Implications for Law, Legal Advocacy, and Social Justice, 94 Cal. L. Rev. 1119 (2006);.
112. Christine Jolls and Cass R. Sunstein, The Law of Implicit Bias, 94 Cal. L. Rev. 969 (2006).
113. See, e.g., Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 707 (1997); Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U.S. 110 (1989); Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494 (1977).
114. Washington, 521 U.S. 707.
115. See David A. Strauss, Common Law Constitutional Interpretation, 63 U. Chi. L. Rev. 877 (1996).
116. Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 593 (2003) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (quoting Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292, 303 (1993). The full quotation-that a state regulation violates the due process clause only when it "offends some principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental"-comes from Justice Cardozo's majority opinion in Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U.S. 97, 105 (1934).
117. See Lawrence, 539 U.S. 558.
118. Burke, Reflections.
119. See Friedrich Hayek, The Origins and Effects of Our Morals: A Problem for Science, in The Essence of Hayek 318 (Chiaki Nishiyama and Kurt Leube eds.) (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1984);.
120. see also Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics, in Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (Washington, DC: Liberty Press, 1998).
121. See, e.g., Bernard Williams, Morality: An Introduction to Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972).
122. See Vermeule, Common Law Constitutionalism.
123. For an important qualification, see Krishna Ladha, The Condorcet Jury Theorem, Free Speech, and Correlated Votes, 36 Am. J. of Poli. Sci. 617 (1992). Ladha shows that the performance of a group can actually be improved if it includes worse-than-random guessers, at least if their biases are negatively correlated with the biases of the relevant experts. I am speaking in the text of correlated biases, that is, groups whose members are biased in the same direction.
124. Condorcet, Selected Writings 62 (Keith Michael Baker ed.) (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1976).
125. See Patrick Devlin, The Enforcement of Morals 14 (London: Oxford University Press, 1965).
126. See Sushil Bikhchandani et al., Learning from the Behavior of Others: Conformity, Fads, and Informational Cascades, 12 J. Econ. Persp. 151, 167 (1998).
127. See Cristina Bicchieri, Informational Cascades and Unpopular Norms, in The Grammar of Society 176 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005);.
128. Stanley Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics (London: Routledge, rev. ed. 2003). Of course moral judgments might well be a product of relevant information, in which case moral cascades are informational cascades too.
129. See Bicchieri, Informational Cascades.
130. See Gregory Moschetti, Individual Maintenance and Perpetuation of a Means-Ends Arbitrary Tradition, 40 Sociometry 78 (1977).
131. See Samantha Power, "A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 2002).
132. See Bicchieri, Informational Cascades.
133. See Hayek, Origins and Effects.
134. See id; see also Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics.
135. Hayek, Origins and Effects, at 329.
136. See Friedrich Hayek, The Use of Knowledge in Society, 35 Am. Econ. Rev. 519 (1945).
137. See Edna Ullmann-Margalit, The Invisible Hand and the Cunning of Reason, 64 Social Research 181 (1997).
138. A superb discussion, from which I have learned a great deal, is Vermeule, Common Law Constitutionalism.
139. See The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture (Leda Cosmides and John Tooby eds.) (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).
140. Friedrich Hayek, Law, Legislation, and Liberty, vol. 1, Rules and Order (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973).
141. See Vermeule, Common Law Constitutionalism.
142. See Michael H.., 491 U.S. at 115.
143. On Burke's skepticism about democracy, see Herzog, Poisoning the Minds; for Hayek's complex and ambivalent view, see his own Whither Democracy? in The Essence of Hayek, at 352.
144. See Moore, 431 U.S. at 494.
145. See, e.g., John Hart Ely, Democracy and Distrust: A Theory of Judicial Review (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981).
146. See Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
147. See Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923); Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925); Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965).
148. For the best treatment, see Vermeule, Judging under Uncertainty.
149. Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 126 S. Ct. 2749 (2006).
150. Griswold, 381 U.S. at 501 (Harlan, J., concurring).
151. See, e.g., Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992) (citing Justice Harlan's approach); Moore, 431 U.S. 494 (citing Justice Harlan's approach).
152. See Michael H., 491 U.S. 110.
153. At the same time, specific readings will appeal to many minds traditionalists, who believe that the specific traditions have epistemic credentials, because those are the traditions of which many minds have approved.
154. Michael H., 491 U.S. at 115.
155. See Laurence Tribe, The Puzzling Persistence of Process-Based Theories of Constitutional Law, 89 Yale L.J. 1063, 1066 n. 9 (1980).
156. See Vermeule, Judging under Uncertainty.
157. See, e.g., 5 U.S.C. 552A (Privacy Act of 1974); 35 U.S.C. 3501 et seq. (Right to Financial Privacy Act of 1978).
158. 198 U.S. 45 (1905).
159. See Alexander Bickel, The Least Dangerous Branch: The Supreme Court at the Bar of Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2d ed. 1986; originally published 1962);.
160. Gerald Gunther, The Subtle Vices of the "Passive Virtues"-a Comment on Principle and Expediency in Judicial Review, 64 Colum. L. Rev. 1 (1964) (criticizing use of justiciability doctrines to avoid principled decision-making).
161. Bickel, The Least Dangerous Branch, at 25.
162. See, e.g., Dworkin, Justice in Robes.
163. Bickel, The Least Dangerous Branch, at 66-70.
164. Gunther, Subtle Vices.
165. See Naim v. Naim, 350 U.S. 985 (1956).
166. 198 U.S. 45 (1905).
167. See generally Ely, Democracy and Distrust.
168. For an early treatment, see Robert Dahl, Decisionmaking in a Democracy: The Supreme Court as National Policymaker, 6 J. Pub. Law 279 (1957). For a recent and broadly compatible discussion, see Klarman, Jim Crow.
169. 350 U.S. 891 (1955).
170. See Elk Grove Unified Sch. Dist. v. Newdow, 542 U.S. 1 (2004).
171. See Edward Levi, An Introduction to Legal Reasoning (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949).
172. Cf. TVA v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153 (1978) (enjoining such a project under the Endangered Species Act).
173. Cf. Steelworkers v. Weber, 443 U.S. 193 (1979) (upholding affirmative action plan).
174. For an overview, see Larry Alexander, Deontology at the Threshold, 37 San Diego L. Rev. 893, 898-901 (2000).
175. See Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214, 248 (1944) (Jackson, J., dissenting).
176. For a good discussion, see Christine Korsgaard, The Right to Lie: Kant on Dealing with Evil, 15 Phil. & Pub. Aff. 325 (1986).
177. See Cass R. Sunstein, Moral Heuristics, 28 Behav. & Brain Sci. 531 (2005).
178. See Breyer, Active Liberty (invoking consequences to assess theory of interpretation); Posner, Law, Pragmatism, and Democracy (same).
179. See Cass R. Sunstein, Moral Heuristics, 28 Behav. & Brain Sci. 531 (2005).
180. See Breyer, Active Liberty (invoking consequences to assess theory of interpretation); Posner, Law, Pragmatism, and Democracy (same).
181. See, e.g., Bickel, The Least Dangerous Branch.
182. See Rosenberg, The Hollow Hope.
183. 531 U.S. 98 (2000).
184. See Richard A. Posner, Bush v. Gore (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000).
185. See Geoffrey R. Stone, Perilous Times (New York: Norton, 2005).
186. See Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 578 (2003).
187. See Stephen Breyer et al., Administrative Law and Regulatory Policy 335-36 (Boston: Aspen, 6th ed. 2006).
188. See Valuing Environmental Preferences: Theory and Practice of the Contingent Valuation Method in the US, EU, and Developing Countries (Ian Bateman and Kenneth G. Willis eds.) (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).
189. See Naim v. Naim, 350 U.S. 985 (1956).
190. See Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973); see also Ginsburg, Some Thoughts on Autonomy.
191. See Learned Hand, The Spirit of Liberty and Other Essays (Irving Dilliard ed.) (New York: Knopf, 1953).
192. See Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 572, 576 (2003).
193. See Bryan Caplan, The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2007).
194. Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms: An Author's Reflections, 76 Denv. U. L. Rev. 937, 940-41 (1999).
195. See Jürgen Habermas,What Is Universal Pragmatics? in Communication and the Evolution of Society 1, 2-4, 32 (Thomas McCarthy trans.) (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979) (discussing preconditions for communication).
196. See Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement 7-8 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998) (outlining foundations of deliberative democracy).
197. See Cass R. Sunstein, Infotopia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).
198. See Andrew F. Daughety and Jennifer F. Reinganum, Stampede to Judgment, 1 Am. Law & Econ. Rev. 158 (1999).
199. See Timur Kuran, Public Lies, Private Truths (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998).
200. For a fair-minded overview, see Mark Tushnet, Out of Range (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
201. See David Schkade et al., What Happened on Deliberation Day? 95 Cal. L. Rev. 915 (2007).
202. Condorcet has to be careful here.What groups count as powerful, and what groups count as powerless, is not only a mere question of fact; it has a normative component as well. See Bruce Ackerman, Beyond Carolene Products, 98 Harv. L. Rev. 713 (1985). And if a powerful group is large, Condorcet might hesitate before rejecting its view, notwithstanding its power.
203. Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 576.
204. See, e.g., Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U.S. 57, 64 (1981) (holding that when Congress has specifically considered the question of an act's constitutionality the "customary deference accorded the judgments of Congress are certainly appropriate").
205. See, e.g., Klarman, Jim Crow (defending Brown on such grounds); Richard A. Posner, Sex and Reason (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994) (defending Griswold on such grounds); HarryWellington, Common Law Rules and Constitutional Double Standards: Some Notes on Adjudication, 83 Yale L.J. 221 (1973) (defending Roe on such grounds).
206. See Robert S. Baron et al., Social Corroboration and Opinion Extremity, 32 J. Experimental Soc. Psychol. 537, 538 (1996).
207. See Reid Hastie, Review Essay: Experimental Evidence of Group Accuracy, in Information Pooling and Group Decision Making 129, 133-46 (Bernard Grofman and Guillermo Owen eds.) (Greenwich: JAI Press, 1983).
208. See Fleming, Securing Constitutional Democracy.
209. See Lawrence Sager, Fair Measure: The Legal Status of Underenforced Constitutional Norms, 91 Harv. L. Rev. 1212 (1978).
210. See Hannah Pitkin, The Concept of Representation (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1965).
211. See Janet Halley, Don't: A Reader's Guide to the Military Anti-Gay Policy (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999).
212. Bickel, The Least Dangerous Branch, at 66 (quoting Abraham Lincoln, speech at Peoria, Illinois (October 16, 1854)), in Collected Works, 2:256.
213. See Roger P. Alford, Misusing International Sources to Interpret the Constitution, 98 Am. J. Int'l L. 57 (2004);.
214. Mark Tushnet, The Possibilities of Comparative Constitutional Law, 108 Yale L.J. 1225 (1999);.
215. Mark Tushnet, Transnational/Domestic Constitutional Law, 37 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 239 (2003);.
216. Ernest A. Young, The Supreme Court, 2004 Term-Comment: Foreign Law and the Denominator Problem, 119 Harv. L. Rev. 148 (2005);.
217. Vicki C. Jackson, The Supreme Court, 2004 Term-Comment: Constitutional Comparisons: Convergence, Resistance, Engagement, 119 Harv. L. Rev. 109 (2005);.
218. Jeremy Waldron, The Supreme Court, 2004 Term-Comment: Foreign Law and the Modern Ius Gentium, 119 Harv. L. Rev. 129 (2005);.
219. Eugene Kontorovich, Disrespecting the "Opinions of Mankind": International Law in Constitutional Interpretation, 8 Green Bag 2d 261 (2005);.
220. Kenneth Anderson, Foreign Law and the U.S. Constitution, Pol'y Rev., June-July 2005, at 33;.
221. Steven G. Calabresi and Stephanie Dotson Zimdahl, The Supreme Court and Foreign Sources of Law: Two Hundred Years of Practice and the Juvenile Death Penalty Decision, 47 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. (2005);.
222. Sanford Levinson, Looking Abroad When Interpreting the U.S. Constitution: Some Reflections, 39 Tex. Int'l L.J. 353 (2004);.
223. Rex Glensy, Which Countries Count? Lawrence v. Texas and the Selection of Foreign Persuasive Authority, 45 Va. J. Int'l L. 357 (2005).
224. A bill in the House would forbid courts to rely on foreign law, see Reaffirmation of American Independence Resolution, H.R. Res. 568, 108th Cong. (2004).
225. In the last decade, the Court has referred to foreign precedents on several occasions. See Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 568-74 (2003);.
226. Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005); Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 342 (2003) (Ginsburg, J., concurring); Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898, 977 (1997) (Breyer, J., dissenting); Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 945 n. 1 (1992) (Rehnquist, C.J., concurring in part, dissenting in part); Foster v. Florida, 537 U.S. 990, 992-93 (2002) (Breyer, J., dissenting); Elledge v. Florida, 525 U.S. 944, 944-45 (1998) (Breyer, J., dissenting from 304, 316 n. 21 (2002); Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811 (1997).
227. Antonin Scalia, Keynote Address: Foreign Legal Authority in the Federal Courts, 98 Am. Society Int'l L. Proc. 305, 307-9 (2004).
228. See, e.g., S. v. Mamabolo, 2001 (1) SACR 686 (CC) (S.Afr.). A great deal of relevant information can be found in The Use of Comparative Law by Courts (Ulrich Drobnig and Sjef van Erp eds.) (Boston: Kluwer, 1997). An illuminating theoretical overview, with many references, can be found in Sujit Choudhry, Globalization in Search of Justification: Toward a Theory of Comparative Constitutional Interpretation, 74 Ind. L. J. 819 (1999).
229. See Basil Markesinis and Jorg Fedke, The Judge as Comparativist, 80 Tul. L. Rev. 11, 57-58 n. 158 (2005); in the same general vein, see Hoyt Webb, The Constitutional Court of South Africa: Rights Interpretation and Comparative Constitutional Law, 1 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 205 (1998).
230. See Bruce Carolan, The Search for Coherence in the Use of Foreign Court Judgments by the Supreme Court of Ireland, 12 Tulsa J. Comp. & Int'l L. 123 (Fall 2004).
231. See Renee Sanilevici, The Use of Comparative Law by Israeli Courts, in Drobnig and van Erp, Use of Comparative Law, 197-221.
232. Markesinis and Fedke, The Judge as Comparativist, at 35-45.
233. Ulrich Drobnig, The Use of Foreign Law by German Courts, in Drobnig and van Erp, Use of Comparative Law, 127, 134-35.
234. See S. Ian Bushnell, The Use of American Cases, 35 University of New Brunswick L.J. 157 (1986);.
235. J. M. MacIntyre, The Use of American Cases in Canadian Courts, 2 U. British Columbia L. Rev. 478 (1966);.
236. H. Patrick Glenn, Persuasive Authority, 32 McGill L.J. 261 (1987);.
237. Peter McCormick, Judicial Authority and the Provincial Courts of Appeal: A Statistical Investigation of Citation Practices, 22 Man. L.J. 286 (1993).
238. See Russell Smyth, What Do Intermediate Appellate Courts Cite? A Quantitative Study of the Citation Practice of Australian State Supreme Court, 21 Adelaide L. Rev. 51 (1999).
239. See Markesinis and Fedke, The Judge as Comparativist, at 26-31 (noting that Italian and French courts do not cite foreign sources but extrinsic evidence suggests they are influenced by them).
240. See Roper, 543 U.S. at 573.
241. For relevant discussion, see Martha C. Nussbaum, Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
242. See Mary Ann Glendon, A World Made Anew (New York: Random House, 2001).
243. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, G.A. Res. 217 A, U.N. GAOR, 3d Sess., art. 1, U.N. Doc. A/810 (1948).
244. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, opened for signature December 16, 1966, art. 1, S. Exec. Doc E, 95-2 (1978), 999 U.N.T.S. 171 (entered into force March 23, 1976).
245. Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Aiming at the Abolition of the Death Penalty (adopted by UNGA Res. 44/128 of December 15, 1989).
246. As of January 2006, 155 states had ratified the ICCPR; only 56 had ratified the second optional protocol.
247. Printz, 521 U.S. at 976.
248. See Transcript of Scalia-Breyer Debate on Foreign Law, American University, January 13, 2005, available at: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1352357/posts.
249. James Morton Smith, Freedom's Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Laws and American Civil Liberties (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1956).
250. See, e.g., James Wilson, Legislative Department, Lectures on Law, in 3 The Founders Constitution 94-95 (Philip Kurland and Ralph Lerner eds.) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987); Remarks of Pierce Butler, South Carolina Legislature.
251. See AlanWatson, Legal Transplants: An Approach to Comparative Law (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2nd ed. 1993). As Watson shows, some countries, such as Japan, carefully studied the legal systems of other nations before reforming their own; others did not.
252. See the illuminating treatment of Kurt Weyland, Bounded Rationality and Policy Diffusion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007).
253. See Linda Greenhouse, The Supreme Court: Sex Offenders; Justices Reject Challenges to Megan's Laws, New York Times, March 6, 2003, at A29 (discussing legal challenges to Megan's Law).
254. Atkins, 536 U.S. at 316 n. 21.
255. Roper, 543 U.S. at 562.
256. Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 576. For accuracy, note that some members of the ECHR are not in western Europe.
257. E.g., Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815, 830-31 (1988).