The Classical Liberal Alternative to Progressive and Conservative Constitutionalism
The Constitution in 2020, Jack M. Balkin and Reva B. Siegel, Editors. Oxford, 2009. Pp iv, 355.
In 2005, a group of liberal scholars gathered at Yale Law School to enter in upon what editors Jack Balkin and Reva Siegel call, in typical Yale style, a “conversation” about the future of American constitutional law (p 1). The results of their deliberations are published in a collection of twenty-seven essays in a volume entitled The Constitution in 2020. Much of course has happened between 2005 and 2009: we have had the surge in Iraq, the financial meltdown in the United States, the election of the progressive Democrat, Barack Obama, to replace the conservative, George W. Bush, and the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor and the nomination of Elena Kagan to the United States Supreme Court as replacements for Justices David Souter and John Paul Stevens repectively. We can doubtless expect lots of other profound changes in the next decade before we reach the target period of 2020.