Remnants of Belief Contemporary Constitutional Issues

Popular debate about constitutional issues, such as abortion, affirmativeaction, the death penalty, and free speech, have become increasingly polarized,with a persistant and growing tendacy to treat constitutional questions such asthese as if they were easy and the answers obvious. In their book HardQuestions, Easy Answers, Seidman and Tushnet, two well-known constitutional lawprofessors, examine popular constitutional argument, using examples drawn fromthe popular press, public discussion and law articles to show how and whyconstitutional debate has evolved into the political conundrum it has become.Because constitutional rhetoric has become the language of American politics,politicians regularly invoke the Constitution on all sides of virtually everypublic question and, in turn, the American people have become preoccupied withconstitutional debate even though they know that very few people are actuallypersuaded by the arguments made. The book investigates this phenomenon andtraces the beginning of it to the transformation of American government thataccompanied the New Deal revolutio1n over a half century ago. In theirinvestigation, the authors examine the debate on issues such as free speech,criminal procedure, discrimination, and capital punishment, and the views ofRobert Bork, Laurence Tribe, Cass Sunstein and other prominent figures in thefield are included..

Mark V. Tushnet is the Associate Dean and Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center.