Author: Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Australia
Languages : en
Pages : 39
Book Description
Entrenchment of a New State Constitution
Author: Entrenchment
Author: Paul StarrPublisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300244827
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298
Book Description
An investigation into the foundations of democratic societies and the ongoing struggle over the power of concentrated wealth Much of our politics today, Paul Starr writes, is a struggle over entrenchment—efforts to bring about change in ways that opponents will find difficult to undo. That is why the stakes of contemporary politics are so high. In this wide-ranging book, Starr examines how changes at the foundations of society become hard to reverse—yet sometimes are overturned. Overcoming aristocratic power was the formative problem for eighteenth-century revolutions. Overcoming slavery was the central problem for early American democracy. Controlling the power of concentrated wealth has been an ongoing struggle in the world’s capitalist democracies. The battles continue today in the troubled democracies of our time, with the rise of both oligarchy and populist nationalism and the danger that illiberal forces will entrench themselves in power. Entrenchment raises fundamental questions about the origins of our institutions and urgent questions about the future.
Entrenchment of a New State Constitution
Author: Northern Territory. Legislative Assembly. Select Committee on Constitutional DevelopmentPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Australia
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Information Paper No. 2
Author: Northern Territory. Legislative Assembly. Select Committee on Constitutional DevelopmentPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 39
Book Description
Discusses relationship between a state constitution and Commonwealth constitutional and legislative powers, particularly section 106 of the Commonwealth constitution; mentions Aboriginal issues and rights.
A Republic of Statutes
Author: William N. Eskridge (Jr.)Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300120885
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 591
Book Description
William Eskridge and John Ferejohn propose an original theory of constitutional law whereby, while the Constitution provides a vision, our democracy advances by means of statutes that supplement or even supplant the written Constitution.
The Revision of the State Constitution: City and county government: Home rule for cities, by H. L. McBain. A proposal for a revision of the municipal article, by L. A. Tanzer. Local government and the state constitution, by M. H. Glynn. The city and the state constitution, by J. P. Mitchel. The organization of county government, by G. S. Buck. Regulation of economic and social conditions: Constitutional limitations on governmental powers, by S. McC. Lindsay. The future of the workmen's compensation amendment, by T. I. Parkinson. Labor legislation, by A. I. Elkus. State policy of forest and water-power conservation, by J. G. Agar. Public service commissions and the state constitution, by J. N. Carlisle. Charitable and correctional institutions and public health, by H. Folks. The Constitution and public franchises, by D. F. Wilcox. Report of the meeting
Author: Academy of Political Science (U.S.)Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Constitutional law
Languages : en
Pages : 226
Book Description
Looking for Rights in All the Wrong Places
Author: Emily ZackinPublisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069115578X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Book Description
Unlike many national constitutions, which contain explicit positive rights to such things as education, a living wage, and a healthful environment, the U.S. Bill of Rights appears to contain only a long list of prohibitions on government. American constitutional rights, we are often told, protect people only from an overbearing government, but give no explicit guarantees of governmental help. Looking for Rights in All the Wrong Places argues that we have fundamentally misunderstood the American rights tradition. The United States actually has a long history of enshrining positive rights in its constitutional law, but these rights have been overlooked simply because they are not in the federal Constitution. Emily Zackin shows how they instead have been included in America's state constitutions, in large part because state governments, not the federal government, have long been primarily responsible for crafting American social policy. Although state constitutions, seemingly mired in trivial detail, can look like pale imitations of their federal counterpart, they have been sites of serious debate, reflect national concerns, and enshrine choices about fundamental values. Zackin looks in depth at the history of education, labor, and environmental reform, explaining why America's activists targeted state constitutions in their struggles for government protection from the hazards of life under capitalism. Shedding much-needed light on the variety of reasons that activists pursued the creation of new state-level rights, Looking for Rights in All the Wrong Places challenges us to rethink our most basic assumptions about the American constitutional tradition.
Global Environmental Constitutionalism
Author: James R. MayPublisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107022258
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 427
Book Description
Reflecting a global trend, scores of countries have affirmed that their citizens are entitled to healthy air, water, and land and that their constitution should guarantee certain environmental rights. This book examines the increasing recognition that the environment is a proper subject for protection in constitutional texts and for vindication by constitutional courts. This phenomenon, which the authors call environmental constitutionalism, represents the confluence of constitutional law, international law, human rights, and environmental law. National apex and constitutional courts are exhibiting a growing interest in environmental rights, and as courts become more aware of what their peers are doing, this momentum is likely to increase. This book explains why such provisions came into being, how they are expressed, and the extent to which they have been, and might be, enforced judicially. It is a singular resource for evaluating the content of and hope for constitutional environmental rights.
An Entrenched Legacy
Author: Patrick M. GarryPublisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271035005
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 202
Book Description
An Entrenched Legacy takes a fresh look at the role of the Supreme Court in our modern constitutional system. Although criticisms of judicial power today often attribute its rise to the activism of justices seeking to advance particular political ideologies, Patrick Garry argues instead that the Supreme Court’s power has grown mainly because of certain constitutional decisions during the New Deal era that initially seemed to portend a lessening of the Court’s power. When the Court retreated from enforcing separation of powers and federalism as the twin structural protections for individual liberty in the face of FDR’s New Deal agenda, it was inevitably drawn into an alternative approach, substantive due process, as a means for protecting individual rights. This has led to many controversial judicial rulings, particularly regarding the recognition and enforcement of privacy rights. It has also led to the mistaken belief that the judiciary serves as the only protection of liberty and that an inherent conflict exists between individual liberty and majoritarian rule. Moreover, because the Court has assumed sole responsibility for preserving liberty, the whole area of individual rights has become highly centralized. As Garry argues, individual rights have been placed exclusively under judicial jurisdiction not because of anything the Constitution commands, but because of the constitutional compromise of the New Deal. During the Rehnquist era, the Court tried to reinvigorate the constitutional doctrine of federalism by strengthening certain powers of the states. But, according to Garry, this effort only went halfway toward a true revival of federalism, since the Court continued to rely on judicially enforced individual rights for the protection of liberty. A more comprehensive reform would require a return to the earlier reliance on both federalism and separation of powers as structural devices for protecting liberty. Such reform, as Garry notes, would also help revitalize the role of legislatures in our democratic system.
Selective Entrenchment Against State Constitutional Change
Author: Russell Patrick PlatoPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
In Wirzburger v. Galvin, Massachusetts citizens challenged the Massachusetts Constitution's Excluded Matters provision, which is a type of subject matter restriction that prohibits popularly initiated amendment of enumerated portions of the state constitution. Because plaintiffs could not show a suspect class, discriminatory intent, or a direct impact on speech, the court applied deferential forms of First Amendment and Equal Protection Clause review, and the challenge failed. This Note argues that the current framework used to evaluate subject matter restrictions, exemplified by Wirzurger, provides insufficient protection against the serious harms such restrictions create. Subject matter restrictions create differential amendability, which makes it harder for citizens to change some aspects of a constitution than to change others. Differential amendability is a serious harm that distorts the design of well-functioning constitutional amendment procedures and threatens longstanding principles of popular sovereignty. Furthermore, this distortion creates a significant risk that barriers to amendment are being employed, intentionally or otherwise, to entrench temporary political supermajorities against future constitutional change. This Note explores these risks and the possibility of controlling them through a federal constitutional analysis that draws on history, functional considerations, and existing voting rights case law. All three factors weigh in favor of engaging in a fundamental rights inquiry into subject matter restrictions. That inquiry might invalidate most subject matter restrictions, but its most significant contribution would be the cultivation of an interinstitutional dialogue over the possibilities and dangers of substantive restrictions on constitutional change at the state level.