Skip to main content

poetry

Independence Day

W. D. Ehrhart
Poet Ehrhart questions how our Declaration of Independence can be true, even as the nation moved toward democracy, perhaps a warning that Constitutional originalism is equally absurd.

books

An Obituary for Originalism

Stephen Rohde Los Angeles Review of Books
This book is a detailed critique of the judicial philosophy to which the current majority of the Supreme Court of the United States adheres.

Originalism Run Amok at the Supreme Court

Michael Waldman Brennan Center for Justice
Originalism, as used by this Court, just provides cover for a right-wing polit­ical agenda. It is a threat to democracy.

The Supreme Court’s Faux ‘Originalism’

Joshua Zeitz Politico
The conservative Supreme Court's favorite judicial philosophy requires a very, very firm grasp of history — one that none of the justices seem to possess.

Let's Stop Treating the Constitution Like the Da Vinci Code

Garrett Epps The Atlantic
The Congressional Research Service points out two things that are missing in Canning: precedent and practicality. A quick glance at a dictionary written more than a quarter-century before the Framing, in another country, was enough to sweep away any counterarguments -- most particularly the argument that, whatever words the Framers may have chosen, they were designing a government that would work, not one that would fall apart whenever 40 senators felt grumpy.
Subscribe to originalism