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The Political Science of Constitutional Resistance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 September 2006

James R. Stoner
James R. Stoner
Affiliation:
Centennial Center Visiting Scholar and Louisiana State University
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Extract

“What do you do when the Supreme Court is wrong?” That question formed the title of a 1979 article in the Public Interest by the late Senator (and political scientist) Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and it resonates today across the political spectrum, as serious criticism of Supreme Court decisions can be found on both Left and Right. Of course if the Supreme Court has supreme authority over the meaning of the Constitution, then either it is incoherent to say the judges can be wrong or there is nothing anyone can do if they are. But everyone admits that erroneous constitutional decisions can evoke constitutional amendments. The question is, what can be done short of that?

Type
ASSOCIATION NEWS
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , October 2006 , pp. 957
Copyright
© 2006 The American Political Science Association

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References

Alexander, Larry, and Frederick Schauer. 1997. “On Extrajudicial Constitutional Interpretation.” Harvard Law Review 110: 1359–87.Google Scholar
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Moynihan, Daniel Patrick. 1979. “What Do You Do When the Supreme Court is Wrong?” Public Interest 57 (fall): 3–24.Google Scholar
Stoner, James R. Jr. 2006. “Constitutional Resistance.” Claremont Review of Books 6 (summer): 42–7.Google Scholar
Whittington, Keith. 1999. Constitutional Construction: Divided Powers and Constitutional Meaning. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.