Mediated Popular Constitutionalism

Should Progressive Constitutionalism Embrace Popular Constitutionalism?

There are two conceptions of progressive constitutionalism explored in this Symposium. The first is of progressive constitutionalism as, first and foremost, a programmatic agenda, focused on how progressives’ “distinctive constitutional vision may best be transmuted into claims of constitutional law.”1 To the extent that this constitutional vision entails only a set of policy preferences (e.g.,...

Pre-revolutionary Popular Constitutionalism and Larry Kramer’s the People Themselves

Because my expertise is in early American history, I will concentrate on Larry Kramer’s portrait of pre-Revolutionary popular constitutionalism, which acts as a baseline against which to measure nineteenth-century developments. Before examining pre-Revolutionary constitutionalism, however, I want to note two features of Kramer’s style of historical argument that make the book a particularly sop...

The People's Constitution vs. The Lawyer's Constitution: Popular Constitutionalism and the Original Debate over Originalism

Popular Constitutionalism and the Rule of Recognition: Whose Practices Ground U.S. Law?

Political constitutionalism

For ‘legal constitutionalists’, written constitutions, constitutive of the legal and political system, superior to other legislation, entrenched against change, and enumerating justiciable rights, guarantee equal respect and concern for all citizens. Judicial review is thus an essential support of democracy. In this book, Richard Bellamy offers a robust argument against this view of constitutio...