The Constitution in 2020

by Jack M. Balkin (Editor), Reva B. Siegel (Editor)

Overview

The Constitution in 2020 is a powerful blueprint for implementing a more progressive vision of constitutional law in the years ahead. Edited by two of America's leading constitutional scholars, the book provides a new framework for addressing the most important constitutional issues of the future in clear, accessible language. Featuring some of America's finest legal minds—Cass Sunstein, Bruce Ackerman, Robert Post, Harold Koh, Larry Kramer, Noah Feldman, Pam Karlan, William Eskridge, Mark Tushnet, Yochai Benkler and Richard Ford, among others—the book tackles a wide range of issues, including the challenge of new technologies, presidential power, international human rights, religious liberty, freedom of speech, voting, reproductive rights, and economic rights. The Constitution in 2020 calls on liberals to articulate their constitutional vision in a way that can command the confidence of ordinary Americans.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195387964
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/26/2009
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Jack M. Balkin is Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment at Yale Law School, and the Founder and Director of Yale's Information Society Project, an interdisciplinary center that studies law and the new information technologies. Professor Balkin teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, telecommunications and Internet law, first amendment law, cultural and social theory, and jurisprudence. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the author of over 80 articles on constitutional and legal theory. He has written op-eds and commentaries for The New York Times, The Boston Globe, the L.A. Times, the Hartford Courant, the New Orleans Times Picayune, the Washington Monthly, and the New Republic Online. He also runs a weblog, Balkinization, at http://balkin.blogspot.com.

Reva B. Siegel is Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Professor of Law at Yale Law School, where she teaches constitutional law, antidiscrimination law, and legal history, and serves as faculty advisor to the American Constitution Society chapter. Professor Siegel's writing draws on legal history to explore questions of law and inequality, and to analyze how courts interact with representative government and popular movements in interpreting the Constitution. Much of her recent work analyzes how progressive and conservative movements have struggled to shape constitutional law in matters concerning race, sex, and the family over the last several decades. She is currently writing a series of articles exploring the genesis of the "traditional family values" coalition and the evolving strategies of the anti-abortion movement.

Table of Contents

I. Introduction
Preface and Acknowledgements
1. The Constitution in 2020, Jack M. Balkin and Reva B. Siegel
II. Interpreting Our Constitution
2. Fidelity to Text and Principle, Jack M. Balkin
3. Democratic Constitutionalism, Robert Post and Reva B. Siegel
III. Social Rights and Legislative Constitutionalism
4. The Minimalist Constitution, Cass R. Sunstein
5. Economic Power and the Constitution, Frank Michelman
6. Social and Economic Rights in the American Grain, William Forbath
7. State Action in 2020, Mark Tushnet
8. The Missing Jurisprudence of Legislated Constitutionalism, Robin West
9. Remembering How To Do Equality, Jack M. Balkin and Reva B. Siegel
IV. Citizenship and Community
10. The Citizenship Agenda, Bruce Ackerman
11. National Citizenship and the Promise of Educational Opportunity, Goodwin Liu
12. Terms of Belonging, Rachel Moran
13. Hopeless Constitutionalism, Hopeful Pragmatism, Richard Ford
V. Democracy and Civil Liberties
14. Voting Rights and the Third Reconstruction, Pam Karlan
15. Political Organization and the Future of Democracy, Larry Kramer
16. A Progressive Perspective on Freedom of Speech, Robert Post
17. Information Structures and the Constitution of American Society, Yochai Benkler
18. The National Surveillance State, Jack M. Balkin
19. The Progressive Past, Tracey Meares
VI. Protecting Religious Diversity
20. The Framers' Church-State Problem and Ours, Noah Feldman
21. Progressives, The Religion Clauses and the Limits of Secularism, William Marshall
VII. Families and Values
22. A Liberal Vision of American Family Law in 2020, William Eskridge
23. A Progressive Reproductive Rights Agenda for 2020, Dawn Johnsen
24. Genetic Technology in 2020, John Podesta and Mark Agrast
VIII. State, Nation, World
25. What's Federalism For?, Judith Resnik
26. Progressive Constitutionalism and Transnational Law, Vicki Jackson
27. "Strategies of the Weak": Thinking Globally and Acting Locally Toward a Progressive Constitutional Vision, David Cole
28. America and the World 2020, Harold Koh

Editorial Reviews

"It is clear that no talent was spared in the construction of Balkin and Siegel's book The Constitution in 2020....Balkin and Siegel have drawn together a group of contributors highly qualified to predict the challenges that redemptive constitutionalism could face in the next decade."—Political Studies Review

"The Constitution in 2020 belongs in every academic law library. This collection would be a valuable addition to a suggested reading list for constitutional law classes. High school students in advanced placement US government and politics classes might be encouraged to read a few of the essays. Law librarians should at least skim through this book, too. You never know when someone is going to ask a question that you may be able to answer thanks to your outside reading."—Law Library Journal

"For a generation, conservatives have dominated our constitutional conversation. Now as a new day dawns, this inspiring book recaptures a progressive vision of a Constitution that can fulfill the country's oldest commitments to a robust and inclusive democracy."—Linda Greenhouse, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of Becoming Justice Blackmun:R

"For much too long, progressive thinkers have been either responding reflexively to agendas set by the right, or wringing their hands over the absence of constructive options of their own. This volume marks the end of that time in the wilderness. Constitutional progressives who read this book's veritable cornucopia of carefully conceived alternatives are bound to be energizes by the vistas opened here—and challenged by the puzzles poster in every sparkling chapter."—Laurence H. Tribe, University Professor, Harvard Law School, and author of The Invisible Constitution

From the Publisher