Daryl Levinson

Is that right?

Is that right?

Yeah, that all sounds right to me, but except the last line. It's not silly to care about the balance of powers, but why are we caring? We've got different goals here. The less you allow people to change...

Yeah, that all sounds right to me, but except the last line. It's not silly to care about the balance of powers, but why are we caring? We've got different goals here. The less you allow people to change...

the structure of government or rights or anything else that's constitutional, the more immediate stability you have in the sense of lack of political contestation over those things, but you may have more long-term instability.

the structure of government or rights or anything else that's constitutional, the more immediate stability you have in the sense of lack of political contestation over those things, but you may have more long-term instability.

Because you may get like the Civil War and other things that happen that are bad when the constitutional system of government falls out of alignment with either underlying patterns of political power or more widespread general consensus over the direction the country ought to be going that is being impeded by a frozen in place constitutional system.

Because you may get like the Civil War and other things that happen that are bad when the constitutional system of government falls out of alignment with either underlying patterns of political power or more widespread general consensus over the direction the country ought to be going that is being impeded by a frozen in place constitutional system.

That seems right. Is it a problem? Well, it's a problem compared to a regime of complete constitutional settlement where we all agree that the right rule of change is Ackerman or the Supreme Court or Article V, right? But it doesn't seem to be enough of a problem of unsettlement that it seriously destabilized our constitutional system of government, at least for a period of a number of decades.

That seems right. Is it a problem? Well, it's a problem compared to a regime of complete constitutional settlement where we all agree that the right rule of change is Ackerman or the Supreme Court or Article V, right? But it doesn't seem to be enough of a problem of unsettlement that it seriously destabilized our constitutional system of government, at least for a period of a number of decades.

A lot of the book shouldn't be of any interest whatsoever to Supreme Court justices or people who are interested in how Supreme Court justices are deciding cases. There's nothing that the Supreme Court justices can do about the fact that we need big picture coordination on a structure of government and to sustain that is hard.

A lot of the book shouldn't be of any interest whatsoever to Supreme Court justices or people who are interested in how Supreme Court justices are deciding cases. There's nothing that the Supreme Court justices can do about the fact that we need big picture coordination on a structure of government and to sustain that is hard.

And there are lots of theoretical interesting things going on behind the scenes that either make the system work or make the system don't work. The value to people who are actually doing the thing of constitutional law is that there are some insights that might shape how the court would actually decide cases or areas of doctrine or jurisprudence. There are some things in the book.

And there are lots of theoretical interesting things going on behind the scenes that either make the system work or make the system don't work. The value to people who are actually doing the thing of constitutional law is that there are some insights that might shape how the court would actually decide cases or areas of doctrine or jurisprudence. There are some things in the book.

So I agree that separation of powers and maybe federalism, too, are areas in which the court is doing nothing of functional value. Now, taking a step back, I'm not sure if the justices ought to care whether they're doing anything of functional value or morally making the country better or worse. That depends on what your theory of constitutional decision-making is by courts and others.

So I agree that separation of powers and maybe federalism, too, are areas in which the court is doing nothing of functional value. Now, taking a step back, I'm not sure if the justices ought to care whether they're doing anything of functional value or morally making the country better or worse. That depends on what your theory of constitutional decision-making is by courts and others.

And if you're purely a Bodian positivist, then I think you don't want the justices to pay attention to things like that. But to the extent that the functional and moral consequences of constitutional law might matter in some way,

And if you're purely a Bodian positivist, then I think you don't want the justices to pay attention to things like that. But to the extent that the functional and moral consequences of constitutional law might matter in some way,

If you believe that as a justice, then I think you would want to rethink your premises of the Madisonian structure of jurisprudence in structural constitutional law, separation of powers, administrative state kinds of cases and federalism cases.

If you believe that as a justice, then I think you would want to rethink your premises of the Madisonian structure of jurisprudence in structural constitutional law, separation of powers, administrative state kinds of cases and federalism cases.