THE CONSTITUTION IN 2020 in the News

The Constitution in 2020 has been the subject of several thoughtful write-ups in the past few weeks. In addition to reviews in the Wall Street Journal and the L.A. Daily Journal, Jeffrey Rosen's "What's a Liberal Justice Now?" (from the May 31st edition of The New York Times Magazine) offers readers a concise overview of the intellectual trends that The Constitution in 2020 is engaging and/or exploring. In the process of laying out the pre-history of The Constitution in 2020, Rosen glosses several major schools of constitutional interpretation, namely, democratic constitutionalism, strict constructionism, and minimalism (I'm throwing quite a few "-isms" around, but no worries -- Rosen does a fantastic job explaining each and their interrelations). One note: While Rosen's article seems to suggest that minimalism is a fading, "Clinton-era" remnant, it's still alive and well, in the pages of The Constitution in 2020 no less (see chapter 4: Cass Sunstein's "The Minimalist Constitution"). Much of the frission in the book arises from the interplay between democratic constitutionalism and minimalism... but that's the subject for another post (or four).
 
Once you've got your constitutional sea-legs under you, you should head over to Ari Shapiro's "Conservatives Have 'Originalism,' Liberals Have...?" on NPR.com. Shapiro uses the publication of The Constitution in 2020 as an occasion to revisit the conversation about what the left/liberal/progressive method of constitutional interpretation is or should be. Several scholars weigh in, opening up what has rapidly developed into a lively discussion in the article's comments section.