Charles L. Zelden and R.B. Bernstein: Amendment Politics: How to Look Like a Statesman
[Charles L. Zelden, professor of History at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, is author of "Bush v Gore: Exposing the Hidden Crisis of American Democracy." R.B. Bernstein, distinguished adjunct professor of law at New York Law School, is the author of "The Founding Fathers Reconsidered" and "Amending America."]
Those who call themselves "constitutional conservatives" have odd ideas about what treating the Constitution conservatively means. We now hear calls for a constitutional amendment unprecedented in the radical change that it would work in our federal system, filled with potential dangers to that system, and with precious little justification.
This Repeal Amendment would empower a supermajority of two-thirds of the states to overturn any federal statute or regulation for being unconstitutional (or just for looking that way).
Two substantive points against the Repeal Amendment come to mind immediately.
First, look at our state legislatures. It's hard to feel any confidence in how they conduct their own business, let alone how they might use the Repeal Amendment to wreak havoc on the federal government. Second, the Repeal Amendment makes clear that the old constitutional war-horse, nullification — a doctrine claiming that a state has the power to nullify any federal law within its own borders — was and is just plain wrong. Why amend the Constitution to create this supermajority state-legislative repeal mechanism unless nullification is as bogus as Andrew Jackson said it was in the 1830s?...
Read entire article at Sun Sentinel
Those who call themselves "constitutional conservatives" have odd ideas about what treating the Constitution conservatively means. We now hear calls for a constitutional amendment unprecedented in the radical change that it would work in our federal system, filled with potential dangers to that system, and with precious little justification.
This Repeal Amendment would empower a supermajority of two-thirds of the states to overturn any federal statute or regulation for being unconstitutional (or just for looking that way).
Two substantive points against the Repeal Amendment come to mind immediately.
First, look at our state legislatures. It's hard to feel any confidence in how they conduct their own business, let alone how they might use the Repeal Amendment to wreak havoc on the federal government. Second, the Repeal Amendment makes clear that the old constitutional war-horse, nullification — a doctrine claiming that a state has the power to nullify any federal law within its own borders — was and is just plain wrong. Why amend the Constitution to create this supermajority state-legislative repeal mechanism unless nullification is as bogus as Andrew Jackson said it was in the 1830s?...