Regulating Our Constitutional Rights

Democratic Rule or Judicial Fiat?

William B. Glidden

• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Year: 2023
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781978778405
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Public Law
• Index: Law

The author argues that we the people's rights under the Constitution as amended cannot be characterized as "specific prohibitions" against government. Life, liberty, and property rights, and the freedoms of religion, speech, and press, for example, are neither self-defining nor precise. Accordingly, in our representative democracy, the unelected, unaccountable, life-tenured judges on the Supreme Court should defer to the laws of Congress affecting these rights absent a clear constitutional violation. But the modern conservative Court has become increasingly willing to overturn the laws and policy choices of our nation's elected representatives based on the judges' political and ideological preferences. Congress has the constitutional power to control the jurisdiction of the lower federal courts and the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, but it has not chosen to exercise this power in any meaningful way to preserve and protect the American people's right to be governed by majoritarian rule

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Introduction
• Should We Reform the Role and Operation of the Court?
• The Drafting and Ratification of Our Constitution
• The Original Meaning of the Bill of Rights
• The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment
• The Court Shreds Congress’ Fourteenth Amendment Enforcement Power
• Fourteenth Amendment Due Process
• The Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights in the States
• The Court’s Enforcement of the Bill of Rights Against Congress
• Choosing Policies for Abortion, Religious Liberty, and Free Speech
• The Court Should Veto Only Clear Mistakes of Congress
• Appendix
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author