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:	9780195387971
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/26/2009
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(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 AcknowledgementsJack Balkin and Reva Siegel (Yale Law School), The Constitution in 2020II. Interpreting Our ConstitutionJack Balkin (Yale Law School), Fidelity to Text and PrincipleRobert Post and Reva Siegel (Yale Law School), Democratic ConstitutionalismIII. Social Rights and Legislative ConstitutionalismCass Sunstein (University of Chicago), The Minimalist ConstitutionFrank Michelman (Harvard Law School), Economic Power and the ConstitutionWilliam Forbath (University of Texas), Social and Economic Rights in the American GrainMark Tushnet (Harvard Law School), State Action in 2020Robin West (Georgetown Law Center), The Missing Jurisprudence of Legislated ConstitutionalismJack Balkin and Reva Siegel (Yale Law School), Remembering How To Do EqualityIV. Citizenship and CommunityBruce Ackerman (Yale Law School), The Citizenship AgendaGoodwin Liu (Boalt Hall Law School), National Citizenship and the Promise of Educational OpportunityRachel Moran (Boalt Hall Law School), Terms of BelongingRichard Ford (Stanford Law School), Hopeless Constitutionalism, Hopeful PragmatismV. Democracy and Civil LibertiesPam Karlan (Stanford Law School) , Voting Rights and the Third ReconstructionLarry Kramer (Stanford Law School), Political Organization and the Future of DemocracyRobert Post (Yale Law School), A Progressive Perspective on Freedom of SpeechYochai Benkler (Harvard Law School), Information Structures and the Constitution of American SocietyJack M. Balkin (Yale Law School), The National Surveillance StateTracey Meares (Yale Law School), The Progressive PastVI. Protecting Religious DiversityNoah Feldman (Harvard Law School), The Framers' Church-State Problem and OursWilliam Marshall (University of North Carolina), Progressives, The Religion Clauses and the Limits of SecularismVII. Families and ValuesWilliam Eskridge (Yale Law School), A Liberal Vision of American Family Law in 2020Dawn Johnsen (Indiana University), A Progressive Reproductive Rights Agenda for 2020John Podesta and Mark Agrast (Center for American Progress), Genetic Technology in 2020VIII. State, Nation, WorldJudith Resnik (Yale Law School), What's Federalism For? Vicki Jackson (Georgetown Law School), Progressive Constitutionalism and Transnational LawDavid Cole, (Georgetown Law Center) "Strategies of the Weak": Thinking Globally and Acting Locally Toward a Progressive Constitutional VisionHarold Koh (Yale Law School), America and the World, 2020

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