Document Type
Book Review
Publication Date
Fall 2024
ISSN
1931-8707
Publisher
Robert Abernethy
Language
en-US
Abstract
This is a review essay inspired by two books: Yuval Levin's American Covenant (2024) and Erwin Chemerinsky's No Democracy Lasts Forever (2024). I make the following points. First, all treatments of the U.S. Constitution can be mapped on a continuum from the worshipful to the diagnostic. Second, Levin's account, which inclines toward the devotional, extols certain features deemed both originalist and virtuous: social unity over untidiness, consensus over dissent, fear and loathing of mass politics. Third, such accounts may not be sufficiently nimble to grapple with contemporary problems such as new forms of oligarchy or movement capture of traditional parties. Insisting upon restoration of older approaches may just lock in democratic deficits. Third, while Chemerinsky's more forward-looking approach is focused on diagnosing existing problems and grudgingly accepts the need for constitutional reform, it's important to evaluate the fit of the proposed solutions with the problems diagnosed. Fourth, Chemerinsky favors a runaway constitutional convention--something that would horrify Levin--but any new rules for constitutional change would have to be able to claim the support of broad and deep support. Fifth, both Levin's restorative approach and Chemerinsky's reformist one still leaves the Supreme Court too much at the center of national policymaking.
Recommended Citation
Robert L. Tsai,
Constitutional Disorder
,
Fall 2024
Democracy: A Journal of Ideas
(2024).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/4239
