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For the first time ever, a retired Supreme Court Justice offers a manifesto on how the Constitution needs to change.
By the time of his retirement in June 2010, John Paul Stevens had become the second longest serving Justice in the history of the Supreme Court. Now he draws upon his more than three decades on the Court, during which he was involved with many of the defining decisions of the modern era, to offer a book like none other. SIX AMENDMENTS is an absolutely unprecedented call to arms, detailing six specific ways in which the Constitution should be amended in order to protect our democracy and the safety and wellbeing of American citizens.
Written with the same precision and elegance that made Stevens's own Court opinions legendary for their clarity as well as logic, SIX AMENDMENTS is a remarkable work, both because of its unprecedented nature and, in an age of partisan ferocity, its inarguable common sense.
- Sales Rank: #121949 in Books
- Published on: 2014-04-22
- Released on: 2014-04-22
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.13" h x .75" w x 5.75" l, .75 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 192 pages
Review
PRAISE FOR THE FIVE CHIEFS:
"Informative and very appealing....It's classic justice Stevens: understated and generous to those he differs with, but absolutely clear on where he believes justice lies."
--- Adam Cohen, Time
"Laced with observations on the court's architecture, traditions and even its seating arrangements, it is the collected ruminations of a man who has served his country in war and peace, across the decades... His memoir is as gracious as its author and a reminder that Stevens is more than a longtime member of the nation's highest court. He is a national treasure."
--- Jim Newton, Los Angeles Times
"An important addition to American history....At its core, the book is not just another memoir from yet another judge. It marks instead the end of an era on the Supreme Court and in the broader swath of American law and politics."
--- Andrew Cohen, The Atlantic
"Coming from the last of a dying breed of jurists who genuinely believe you can learn something from everyone if you just listen hard enough, it is a lesson in how, at the Supreme Court, civility and cordiality matter more, even, than doctrine."
--- Dahlia Lithwick, Washington Post
About the Author
John Paul Stevens served as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1970-1975. President Ford nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat December 19, 1975. Justice Stevens retired from the Supreme Court on June 29, 2010. He has written for the New York Review of Books and is the author of Five Chiefs: A Supreme Court Memoir.
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101 of 117 people found the following review helpful.
Short and easy to read, but ultimately unsatisfying
By William Springer
In the wake of the unprecedented level of gerrymandering that followed the 2010 elections, as well as the Supreme Court's gutting of the Voting Rights Act and campaign finance laws, it has become very clear that a constitutional amendment may be required in order to preserve the right to vote in this country. While I have not read Stevens' previous book, I've heard good things about his writing, so I've been looking forward to reading his latest offering. It was announced early on that he would take on the second amendment, which guaranteed that the book would be controversial, but I was more interested in the other five amendments he intended to offer. Although Stevens spent nearly 35 years on the high court, he seems to feel that it has taken on excessive power, and here he advocates returning power to the people's representatives in Congress.
After a quick review of the successful amendments thus far, Stevens proceeds to a discussion of the Supremacy Clause and whether the federal government can compel state officials to enforce federal law, given that the language specifically calls out judges ("and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby"); he recommends adding the words "and other public officials", with the reasoning that often state officials are in the best position to enforce federal law. Stevens clearly considers this to be a clarification rather than a change, but one which would overturn past rulings of the court.
The second chapter moves on to what I would consider one of the greatest threats to democracy: political gerrymandering. While few people have much good to say about gerrymandering (indeed, Stephens opens with a quote from Antonin Scalia describing severe partisan gerrymanders as incompatible with democratic principles), thus far the courts have declined to step in other than to prevent racial gerrymanders. Oddly enough, Stevens weakens the impact of his argument by using older examples of gerrymandering that left the minority party with fewer seats than they could reasonably expect have gotten based on their share of the vote, while ignoring the more egregious gerrymandering that happened after the 2010 elections and in some cases allowed the Republican party to capture a supermajority of seats in 2012 while getting a minority of the vote. He argues, and I would agree, that having compact districts is more important than making sure each one has exactly the same number of people (while the numbers should be approximately equal, I would argue that a 1% difference in size does far less damage than the....interesting...shapes of today's congressional districts).
In chapter three, we move on to campaign finance. Congress has always tried to impose limits on political spending in order to avoid corruption. Most recently, the debate has been over whether Congress can limit the aggregate amount that an individual can donate to political campaigns and whether non-human entities (such as corporations and unions) can spend without restriction. So far the most interesting option I've seen (although one not mentioned in this book) is to expand the current prohibition on election spending by people who are not US citizens to say that money spent to promote or oppose a candidate may only come from people who could legally vote for or against that candidate. Of course, any one restriction we put into place may be gamed; Stevens suggests an amendment simply stating that Congress and the states may impose reasonable limits on how much candidates and their supporters may spend in election campaigns. Reasonable, of course, would be defined by the appropriate lawmakers.
Moving on, chapter four covers a somewhat more obscure topic: sovereign immunity. Under common law, the king could not be sued without his consent, and the states have assumed this power to themselves (and solidified it with the 11th amendment, which prohibits federal courts from ruling on suits brought against a state by citizens of another state (or another country). More recently (although this isn't covered in the chapter, and the court has never given it much credence) we've seen claims that states can invalidate federal law under the 10th amendment. The proposed amendment for this chapter clarifies that a state and its agencies and officers are subject to the Constitution and to acts of Congress.
In chapter five, we consider the death penalty. Does it fall under the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment? Should it be decided at the federal level, rather than state by state? Stevens recommends adding the words "such as the death penalty" to the prohibition in the 8th amendment. I found this to be the weakest chapter in that nothing herein will convince anyone not already opposed to the death penalty that a problem exists.
Chapter six, on gun control, is disappointingly short. As expected, Stevens covers the history of judicial rulings on the second amendment, through the 5-4 votes in 2008 and 2010 (District of Columbia v Heller and McDonald v Chicago, respectively) that expanded the right to keep a handgun and limited the right of the government to outlaw handguns. The topic guaranteed that this would be the most controversial chapter in the book, and I had hoped Stevens would make use of that attention by giving an in-depth treatment of how the second amendment has been interpreted throughout the history of the country, but instead the coverage of the historical record is minimal. The purpose of this chapter is primarily to argue that Congress, not the courts, should be charged with deciding on the proper regulation of guns.
As to my rating, I start out by giving the book four stars for entertainment and education. It's very easy to read, despite what can be somewhat technical subject matter. However, I deduct a star because the book fails on several counts. Primarily, this is intended as a persuasive book, but while Stevens adequately (if only just) demonstrates the existence of each problem, he devotes no space to convincing the reader that his proposed amendment is the optimal way to deal with that problem. In fact, not enough space is devoted to the book in general; it weighs in at only 168 pages, not particularly lengthy given the subject matter, and only 2/3 of that is the actual book, the remainder being taken up by illustrations, the text of the Constitution, etc. Overall, the book is a disappointment, not only because it fails to accomplish its goal of convincing the reader to support Steven's preferred solutions to the various problems mentioned, but because of the wasted opportunity that a book by a man in his position had to more fully inform the public.
This review originally appeared on Vulcan Ears Book Reviews (vulcanears.com)
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
Justice Stevens' Constitutional Correctives
By Ronald H. Clark
It is spring and proposed constitutional amendments are in the air. One thoughtful group has come from conservative commentator Mark Levin in his interesting "The Liberty Amendments." Now retired Justice John Paul Stevens has offered his own menu of six amendments in this volume. As regards the general reader, some chapters will interest many; other chapters deal with areas that may be overwhelmingly technical or simply less interesting. In any regard, Justice Stevens offers some fresh ideas and proposals that bear serious consideration. The book follows a uniform methodology: Justice Stevens first outlines a problem he sees in the present constitutional structure and then articulates how he would amend the document to correct that problem. I think this approach works well and is easy to follow.
After a prologue which is a quick run through the present lineup of constitutional amendments, Stevens in the initial chapter turns to the "anti-commandeering rule." The supremacy clause of the Constitution (Art. VI, Cl. 2) imposed a duty on state judges to implement and apply federal law as superior to state law. Recently, the issue has arisen whether state officials in addition to judges can be required to implement federal law. The background-checking provisions of gun-control legislation is a prime example. Recent Supreme Courts have imposed an area of state immunity from federal statutes, arguing that the supremacy clause only specifies judges are bound by it. Justice Stevens thinks this approach is inappropriate and would modify the clause to include all "public officials." The only problem with this chapter is that it throws a lot of case law at the reader, since many of the problems Stevens sees are the result of Supreme Court decisions.
Stevens next discusses what appears to be a very major concern of his: political gerrymandering. Unlike racial gerrymandering which has been dead for a generation or two, the political variety continues to function. While electoral districts may be roughly equal in size, they still can be drawn to favor one party or another. Among other problems this can lead to safe districts returning incumbents election after election. For Stevens, this results in a lack of compromise as reflected in the government shutdown of October 2013. Stevens' proposed amendment language (Congressional and state legislative districts shall be "compact and composed of contiguous territory") seems somewhat plastic and fluid such that application of this standard would prove quite difficult.
In the third chapter, Stevens tackles a very major issue: campaign finance. His historical discussion is designed to educate the reader as a foundation for the discussion to follow. I have always found this area of the law to be taxing and confusing, and in order to explain it Stevens must throw a lot of arcane distinctions and case law at the reader. While this is done well, it is still a difficult chapter to absorb. The solution to the money-in-elections issue should be to place "reasonable limits" on spending in order to protect democratic self-government. But here again the proposed test of "reasonable limits" seems very wide open to me.
The remain chapters discuss several important issues, including sovereign immunity and the death penalty (with its frightful risk of mistake). The final chapter deals with gun control, another hot topic. I was expecting a more elaborate discussion of this issue, given Stevens' masterful dissenting opinion in the D.C. Supreme Court holding in the Heller case. Here he is somewhat concise and reasserts his position that the second amendment pertains to weapons held "when serving in the militia." The political realities of this issue would, I assume, foreclose such an amendment from seeing the light of day. On the positive side, Stevens' does point out that the Heller holding is less constrictive than the media has made it out to be.
The book runs some 134 pages, and includes some helpful illustrations, particularly colorful exhibits used in some of the political gerrymandering litigation. There are a few footnotes, but for the most part they refer to Supreme Court cases and not secondary material. An appendix containing the entire Constitutional is included, as an index. I think the main strength of the book is to highlight some important issues that Justice Stevens' feels need to be addressed by constitutional amendment. While his proposed amendments are not perfect, they are probably the best proposals we are going to get on these six issues.
67 of 93 people found the following review helpful.
If Only These Could Be Easily Accomplished!
By Loyd Eskildson
Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens wants to change the Constitution with six amendments to reduce gun violence, limit political campaign spending, outlaw the death penalty, limit states' independence, and make Congress less combative and ideological.
Here are the four most significant:
1)Gerrymandering: Congressional districts, as well as those at the state level, shall be compact and composed of contiguous territory.
2)Campaign Finance: Congress, not any state, will be not prohibited from imposing reasonable limits on the amount of money that candidates for public office, or their supporters, may spend in election campaigns.
3)Death Penalty: The death penalty shall not be inflicted.
4)The Second Amendment: 'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed.
What he doesn't propose amending, however, is the difficulty in amending the Constitution - very likely a fatal oversight. It takes two-thirds of both houses of Congress or state legislatures to propose an amendment and three-fourths of the legislatures to approve it. In today's environment it's almost impossible to even get a simple majority of both houses of Congress.
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