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Conservatives, Liberals, Romantics: The Persistent Quest For Certainty In Constitutional Interpretation, Frederick M. Gedicks

Vanderbilt Law Review

From the time that Robert Bork issued his first attack on the Warren Court, originalism has belonged to political conservatives. This interpretive theory, which holds that the understanding of the Constitution at the time it was drafted and ratified controls its contemporary meaning, has been regularly utilized by conservative judges and politicians over the last two decades to question the legitimacy of various (mostly liberal) Supreme Court decisions. Given the liberal tilt of the legal academy, it is not suprising that advocates of originalism constitute a minority of constitutional scholars.

Recently, a prominent constitutional theorist with unmistakably liberal credentials announced …