If you’ve ever wondered what “emanations of penumbras,” “evolving standards,” and the “sweet mysteries of life” have to do with the supreme law of the land, you’ll probably enjoy Kevin R.C. Gutzman’s new Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution (Regnery).
Gutzman explains the document’s history (including a focus on the “ratifiers,” rather than the “framers”), then shows how successive Supreme Court justices have ignored the document in developing “constitutional law.”
He also offers some recommendations for change:
The main problem with the Supreme Court’s rulings over the last seventy years is that they have allowed Congress to do too much and state governments to do too little. In other words, the Supreme Court has ignored the Constitution’s division of powers between the state and federal governments. The solution, then, is to provide the states with a new check on federal interference and overreaching.
One idea is to create a constitutional council of the fifty states. The council could consist either of the fifty state chief justices or of fifty members elected to represent the states. The council would be given power to review the federal courts’ constitutional decisions. This council could help restore the republican federal government of very limited powers we started off with and undo the unrepublican judgeocracy of limitless powers we have now.
