The Least Examined Branch: The Role of Legislatures in the Constitutional State

Cover......Page 1
Half-title......Page 3
Title......Page 5
Copyright......Page 6
Contents......Page 7
Foreword: Legislatures in the Constitutional State......Page 11
Contributors......Page 17
New Ways of Looking at Old Institutions......Page 21
1 Principles of Legislation......Page 35
1. The Very Idea of Legislation......Page 42
2. The duty of care......Page 43
3. The Principle of  Representation......Page 44
4. Respect for disagreement and the principle of loyal opposition......Page 45
5. The principle of responsive deliberation......Page 47
6. The principle of legislative formality......Page 48
7. Political equality and the principle of majority decision......Page 49
Acknowledgments......Page 52
2 An Exact Epitome of the People......Page 53
Separation of powers......Page 54
Problems of Collective Action......Page 56
Representation......Page 57
Representation and Mutual Advantage......Page 59
Creative Destruction......Page 60
Corporate Democracy......Page 62
Concluding Remarks......Page 64
3 Political Accountability, Proxy Accountability, and the Democratic Legitimacy of Legislatures......Page 65
Accountability as Unrealized Aspiration......Page 67
Potential Theories of Accountability by Proxy......Page 69
Accountability Through Prediction......Page 70
Accountability Through Heuristics......Page 71
Accountability Through Aggregation/Disaggregation......Page 72
Why Proxy Theories Do Not Solve the Problem......Page 73
Assessing Accountability Through Prediction......Page 74
Assessing Heuristics Theory......Page 83
Aggregation/Disaggregation Theories......Page 88
Conclusion......Page 92
Acknowledgments......Page 95
4 Constitutionalism, Trade Legislation, and “Democracy”......Page 96
Tensions in democratic theory......Page 97
As related to trade policy......Page 99
The Ambiguity of Constitutional Interpretation: The Separation-of-Powers Challenge......Page 100
The relationship between constitutionality and the democratic objection......Page 101
Ambiguity in constitutional theory......Page 102
Ambiguity in the legislative power......Page 103
Ambiguity in the foreign affairs power......Page 106
Conclusion......Page 110
5 Legislative Judgment and the Enlarged Mentality: Taking Religious Perspectives......Page 113
I. Legislative Functions: Formulating Constituional Values and Collective Deliberation on the Public Good......Page 115
II. The Enlarged Mentality: Taking Others' Perspectives......Page 118
III. The Benefits of Taking Religious Perspectives......Page 119
A. Taking the public good seriously......Page 120
B. The enlarged mentality and collective deliberation: Understanding the issues......Page 125
C. The enlarged mentality and mutual respect......Page 128
D. Religious perspectives and cross-cutting values......Page 129
A. Intimate beliefs, truth claims, and pluralism......Page 131
B. Unreason and divisiveness......Page 133
C. Religion as authority......Page 134
V. Respecting Tensions in the Mode of Discourse: Toward the Optimal Tenor of Debate......Page 136
VI. Constitutional Values and the Contribution of Religiously Based Argument......Page 141
Conclusion......Page 143
Acknowledgment......Page 144
1. Two applications of coherence to the law......Page 145
3. The scope of integrity......Page 146
4. The meaning of legislative integrity......Page 147
5. Conflict and contradiction......Page 148
6. The background of value pluralism......Page 149
B. The Argument from Pluralism......Page 150
1. Division of legislative power......Page 155
2. Logrolling and compromise......Page 156
3. Partisan realignment and the continuity of law......Page 157
Acknowledgments......Page 158
7 Nondelegation Principles......Page 159
A. Intelligible principles (?)......Page 161
B. Problems, institutional and otherwise......Page 163
II. Hidden Nondelegation Principles......Page 166
B. Trumping Chevron: three categories of nondelegation canons......Page 167
A. Judicial administrability and congressional lawmaking......Page 172
B. Qualifications and futures......Page 173
Acknowledgments......Page 174
Populism......Page 175
The constitution......Page 178
II. The Populist Reinvention of the Legislature......Page 181
Conclusion: Populism, governance, and the constitution......Page 196
Acknowledgments......Page 199
9 Legislatures as Constituent Assemblies......Page 201
Acknowledgments......Page 217
10 Legislatures and the Phases and Components of Constitutionalism......Page 218
A. Three phases of constitutionalism......Page 220
B. Components of constitutions......Page 224
C. Institutional implications......Page 226
II. Conclusion......Page 232
Acknowledgments......Page 233
11 Legislatures and Constitutional Agnosticism......Page 234
I. Constitutional agnosticism: a brief overview......Page 235
II. Legislatures and constitutional agnosticism......Page 237
III. Conclusion......Page 247
Acknowledgments......Page 248
12 Constitutional Amendments and the Constitutional Common Law......Page 249
I. The Relevance of Constitutional Amendments......Page 251
A. Counterfactuals, causation, and constitutional amendment......Page 252
B. Irrelevance and generalization......Page 258
II. The Generic Case Against Constitutional Amendment......Page 262
B. The generic arguments......Page 264
C. Voting rules, public norms, and Article V......Page 276
A Preliminaries......Page 279
B. Institutions and updating......Page 282
C. Relative superiority: Some variables......Page 287
Conclusion......Page 290
Acknowledgments......Page 291
I. Prologue......Page 293
II. Two Theses......Page 294
III. Thesis 1: The Simple Argument......Page 297
IV. Thesis 2: The Constitution as Statutoid......Page 301
V. Thesis 2: Statutoids and "Ultimate Rules of Recognition''......Page 302
VI. Thesis 2: "I've Been Working on the URR''......Page 307
VII. Thesis 2: Two-Tiered Versus Three-Tiered Constructions......Page 311
14 Conditions for Framework Legislation......Page 314
I. Necessary Conditions for Congress to Have the Option of a Framework Law......Page 317
A. A concrete, well-defined problem......Page 318
B. Congressional parties and framework laws......Page 320
II. Conditions Leading to Adoption of Frameworks in Statutory Form......Page 327
A. Statutes as signals of the extent of the change......Page 330
B. Enacting bargains as a package......Page 332
C. Path dependency......Page 337
Acknowledgments......Page 339
15 Super-Statutes: The New American Constitutionalism......Page 340
I. The Standard Account of American Constitutionalism......Page 341
II. Alternative Perspectives About Constitutionalism......Page 348
III. Super-Statutes......Page 352
IV. Some Examples: Super- and Not-So-Super-Statutes......Page 357
V. The Life Cycle of a Super-Statute......Page 361
VI. The New American Constitutionalism......Page 364
VII. The Evolution of Modern Constitutional Law......Page 369
VIII. Conclusion: Gay Rights and the New American Constitutionalism......Page 370
Acknowledgments......Page 373
16 Interpretation in Legislatures and Courts: Incentives and Institutional Design......Page 375
I. A Constitution-Based Standard of Evaluation......Page 376
A. The individual level: legislators’ motivations......Page 380
B. Courts and legislators......Page 385
III. The Institutional Level: Evaluating Legislative Performance......Page 389
IV. Executive Officials and State and Local Legislatures in the United States......Page 392
A. Executive officials......Page 393
B. Subordinate legislatures......Page 394
V. Conclusion......Page 396
17 Constitutional Engagement “Outside the Courts” (and “Inside the Legislature”): Reflections on Professional Expertise and the Ability to Engage in Constitutional Interpretation......Page 398
Debunking a Myth......Page 405
Invalidation: not a new role......Page 406
Invalidation: never discretionary......Page 407
A theoretical approach to constitutional interpretation......Page 408
APPENDIX I. Supreme Court decisions rendered between 1945 and 1982 resulting in complete or partial invalidation of statutes......Page 411
APPENDIX II. Supreme Court decisions rendered between 1983 and 2003 resulting in complete or partial invalidation of statutes on Charter grounds......Page 412
Decisions originating from Quebec......Page 414
Decisions originating from other provinces......Page 415
19 The Constitution and Congressional Committees: 1971–2000......Page 416
Data and Approach......Page 417
Partisan Factors......Page 421
Internal Institutional Factors......Page 423
The Judiciary Committees......Page 425
External Institutional Factors......Page 428
Conclusion......Page 429
20 Democratic Decision Making as the First Principle of Contemporary Constitutionalism......Page 431
I. The Role of the Courts......Page 432
II. The Foundational Problem of Defining the Public Voice......Page 438
III. Democratic decision making as the First Principle of Contemporary Constitutionalism......Page 442
IV. Conclusion......Page 449
Acknowledgments......Page 450
21 Legislative Constitutionalism in a System of Judicial Supremacy......Page 451
A. The Westminster model as nonstarter......Page 452
B. Supremacy versus hegemony......Page 454
II. Traces of Legislative Constitutionalism in the American Legal Regime......Page 455
A. Constitutional interpretation: shaping, extending, and overruling judicial doctrine......Page 456
B. Independent interpretative authority......Page 462
C. Constitution making by Congress: constructing the structure of government......Page 465
III. Implications for Constitutional Theory......Page 469
Historical roots of legislative constitutionalism......Page 472
Two forms of legislative constitutionalism......Page 479
Acknowledgments......Page 487
I......Page 488
II......Page 489
III......Page 491
IV......Page 492
V......Page 495
VI......Page 498
Acknowledgments......Page 499
A. Two Conceptions of Constitutionalism......Page 500
B. Constitutional Crises: Secessions and Revolutionary Legality......Page 501
C. Secession Clauses as Constitutional Precommitments to Avoid Constitutional Crises......Page 504
D. Popular Constitutionalism and Constitutional Precommitments: The Clarity Act and Bill 99......Page 508
E. From Popular Revolution to Popular Constitutionalism?......Page 511
F. Conclusion......Page 516
Acknowledgments......Page 518
25 Disobeying Parliament? Privative Clauses and the Rule of Law......Page 519
Kinds of Privative Clauses......Page 522
Evisceration, Reconciliation, and Deference......Page 523
(i) Evisceration......Page 524
(ii) Reconciliation......Page 525
(iii) Deference......Page 530
Legality and Constitutionality......Page 533
Acknowledgments......Page 538
26 Look Who's Talking Now: Dialogue Theory and the Return to Democracy......Page 539
I. The Demise of Legislative Supremacy......Page 540
II. The Rebirth of Legislative Supremacy......Page 541
III. Dialogue and Democracy......Page 544
IV. Taking Democracy Seriously......Page 546
V. Conclusion......Page 550
A. Legal Transplants and Legislation......Page 552
B. The Dialogue Discourse in Legal Scholarship......Page 553
C. Legislation during Transitions......Page 554
(2) Opening up to the west......Page 555
(3) Transitions of legal regimes......Page 556
(2) Following model laws......Page 557
E. The Impact of Foreign Legislatures in Ordinary Circumstances......Page 558
(1) Cultural tendencies favorable or adverse to external influences......Page 559
(2) Institutional capabilities for the study of comparative law......Page 560
(4) Competition between states and economic incentives......Page 561
(6) Legislation impinging on foreign states......Page 562
F. The Case of "From Welfare to Work"......Page 563
G. Inspiration without a Community......Page 564
Acknowledgments......Page 566
28 Legislatures in Dialogue with One Another: Dissent, Decisions,
and the Global Polity......Page 567
I. Dissenting by Deciding......Page 568
II. Dissenting by Deciding and the Marketplace of Ideas......Page 570
A. Decisional dissent and its role in making disagreement visible......Page 571
B. The dynamics of decision making – conformity, polarization, and cascades – and the appropriate institutional cure......Page 574
III. Interlegislative Dialogue in a Global Era......Page 578
A. Dissent and the global polity......Page 579
B. Practical policy implications for fostering productive interlegislative dialogue......Page 581
Conclusion......Page 583
Acknowledgments......Page 585
Index......Page 587