Politics & Current Events
Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill (1912-1994) is most closely associated with the truism “all politics is local.” One meaning of the observation is that politics must have a base of pragmatic neighborhood reality. It is not all theory; it is not all anticipation of demographics; it is not an imposition from above but an attention to grassroots. For years I resisted breaking out my political books to a page of their own because the topic seemed so ephemeral, so transitory. Well, what is the web but superb access to the ephemeral? I will try NOT to include too much history here or to stack the deck, so to speak, with partisan books. On the other hand, what is available is what is available — the only criteria is good writing, good sourcing, and some accordance with what my customers may be interested in. In that way, I am keeping it local, as per Speaker O’Neill. It will grow with time and a broadening definition of what is politics and what is a current event.
Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism
Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism
A provocative, brilliant analysis by recently retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer that deconstructs the textualist philosophy of the current Supreme Court’s supermajority and makes the case for a better way to interpret the Constitution.
The relatively new judicial philosophy of textualism dominates the Supreme Court. Textualists claim that the right way to interpret the Constitution and statutes is to read the text carefully and examine the language as it was understood at the time the documents were written.
This, however, is not Justice Breyer’s philosophy nor has it been the traditional way to interpret the Constitution since the time of Chief Justice John Marshall. Justice Breyer recalls Marshall’s exhortation that the Constitution must be a workable set of principles to be interpreted by subsequent generations.
Most important in interpreting law, says Breyer, is to understand the purposes of statutes as well as the consequences of deciding a case one way or another. He illustrates these principles by examining some of the most important cases in the nation’s history, among them the Dobbs and Bruen decisions from 2022 that he argues were wrongly decided and have led to harmful results.