We very much enjoyed our week of blogging at the Conspiracy and once again want to thank Eugene, the other Conspirators, and the commenters. Many comments raised important and interesting points that we were not able to discuss in 5 posts. Those interested will find our views elaborated at much greater length in the book. […]
Author Archive | Profs. John McGinnis & Michael Rappaport, guest-blogging
Originalism: We the People of the Past, the Present, and the Future
By Profs. John McGinnis & Michael Rappaport, guest-blogging on January 10, 2014 9:20 am in Originalism and its Critics
Frequently, it is argued that the problem with originalism is that it forces us to be governed by an old Constitution that is out of date. We think that this claim gets it backwards: nonoriginalism impedes the Constitution from being improved through the amendment process. It has sometimes been thought that the amendment process is […]
Originalism and An Intermediate Theory of Precedent
By Profs. John McGinnis & Michael Rappaport, guest-blogging on January 9, 2014 8:49 am in Originalism and its Critics
Precedent poses a problem for originalism, because much of Supreme Court jurisprudence is nonoriginalist. Originalists have had two ways of treating such precedent. The first is to dismiss nonoriginalist precedent as inconsistent with the Constitution. Under this view, the Constitution must be interpreted according to its original meaning because nothing in the document permits precedent […]
Interpreting the Constitution Through Original Methods Originalism
By Profs. John McGinnis & Michael Rappaport, guest-blogging on January 8, 2014 9:00 am in Originalism and its Critics
Originalism holds that the Constitution should be interpreted in accordance with its original meaning. But how does one determine the original meaning? There have been two leading theories about how to do this: original intent and original public meaning. We propose a third theory of how to determine the original meaning (or, put differently, a […]
Our Normative Argument For Originalism
By Profs. John McGinnis & Michael Rappaport, guest-blogging on January 7, 2014 9:15 am in Originalism and its Critics
There are a number of ways of attempting to justify following the Constitution’s original meaning. Some people believe that originalism constrains judges. Others see the Constitution as the choice of the people under a popular sovereignty view. We seek to justify following both the Constitution and the original meaning based on the normative desirability of […]
The Project of the Book
By Profs. John McGinnis & Michael Rappaport, guest-blogging on January 6, 2014 10:31 am in Originalism and its Critics
We are very happy to be blogging at the Volokh Conspiracy about our new book, Originalism and the Good Constitution, which has just been published by Harvard University Press. We want to thank both Eugene and the other Conspirators for the opportunity to offer our views on originalism. Our book presents a variety of new, […]