Constitution of the US

constitutional crisis

nationality

American

occupation / innovator as

scientist

innovator in the field of

constitutional law

philosopher

scientific organization

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

is a project of ongoing interpretation. The founding fathers intentionally made some passages vague and/or general because they expected that people who came along later would have an obligation to do their part in continuing the project.

Siegel co-edited the new book The Constitution in 2020 with Yale law professor Jack Balkin. Balkin argues that the Founding Fathers intentionally made some passages of the Constitution very specific such as the requirement that the president be at least 35 years old and other passages intentionally vague. 'They spoke in general terms because they expected that people who came along later would have to do their part,' Balkin says. 'They would have an obligation to continue the project.' Balkin describes that project of ongoing interpretation as true constitutional fidelity.

is either when (1) leaders violate the constitution out of exigences, (2) where fidelity to constitutional forms will lead to ruin, or (3) where public disagreements about the constitution lead to extraordinary forms of protest.

We argue that a constitutional crisis refers to a turning point in the health and history of a constitutional order, and we identify three different types of constitutional crises … Type one crises arise when political leaders believe that exigencies require public violation of the Constitution. Type two crises are situations where fidelity to constitutional forms leads to ruin or disaster. Type three crises involve situations where publicly articulated disagreements about the Constitution lead political actors to engage in extraordinary forms of protest beyond mere legal disagreements and political protests: people take to the streets, armies mobilize, and brute force is used or threatened in order to prevail. If a central purpose of constitutions is to make politics possible, constitutional crises mark moments when constitutions threaten to fail at this task.

is when moments when constitutions threaten to fail at their central task of making politics possible.

is without a fixed meaning and is used too much these days because the very purpose of constitutional checks and balances is to create conflict among and between the branches and the federal government and the states.

As the constitutional scholars Jack Balkin and Sanford Levinson point out in their 2008 article on constitutional crises, the “language of crisis,” has recurred since the ratification of the Constitution, but the phrase “constitutional crisis” has no fixed meaning. Since the purpose of constitutional checks and balances is to create conflict among and between the branches and the federal government and the states, they argue, “If we were to say that every such confrontation was a crisis, we would have to conclude that the American Constitution was designed to place the country in a state of perpetual crisis.” Jeff Shesol, for example, identifies President Roosevelt’s “Court-packing” plan of 1937 as a constitutional crisis, but Balkin and Levinson dispute this: “Roosevelt simply accepted his defeat and did not attempt to install extra Justices without congressional approval.” The impeachments of Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, by the same token, are hard to view as constitutional crises, since the Constitution contemplates presidential impeachments. During the Clinton impeachment, the unaccountable, unconstrained, arguably unconstitutional and mercifully lapsed independent counsel law arguably subverted the constitutional structures far more than Clinton did.

Jack BalkinThinkers

Jack Balkin