How Failed Attempts to Amend the Constitution Mobilize Political Change
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.12 (560 Votes) |
| Asin | : | B072YMXBSZ |
| Format Type | : | |
| Number of Pages | : | 268 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-03-31 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
The definition of the relationship between Congress and the President in the conduct of foreign policy can also be traced directly to failed efforts to amend the Constitution during the Cold War.Roger Hartley examines familiar examples like the ERA, balanced budget amendment proposals, and pro-life attempts to overturn Roe v. He explains how often the mere threat of calling a constitutional convention (at which anything could happen) effected political change.. They failed to achieve the requisite two-thirds support from Congress, but nevertheless had an impact on the political landscape. Wade, but also takes the reader on a three-century tour of lesser-known amendments. Only twenty-seven amendments have been approved in 225 years. Why do members of Congress continue to introduce amendments at a pace of almost two hundred a year?This book is a demonstration of how social reformers and politicians have used the amendment process to achieve favorable political results even as their proposed amendments have failed to be adopted. Since the Constitution's ratification, members of Congress, following Article V, have proposed approximately twelve thousand amendments, and states have filed several hundred petitions with Congress for the convening of a constitutional convention. For example, the ERA "failed" in the sense that it was never ratified, but the mobilization to ratify the ERA helped build the feminist movement (and also sparked a countermobilization
He is co-author of Labor Relations Law in the Private Sector. Roger C. Hartley, Professor of Law at the Catholic University of America, teaches constitutional law and labor law.
This is an important contribution to the literature on the amending process."—John R. Hartley's book is clearly written and very impressive in its thoroughness. Vile, Professor of Political Science and Dean of the Honors College at Middle Tennessee State University, and author of The Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-2015 and Conventional Wisdom: The Alternate Article V Mechanism for Proposing Amendments to the U.S. Although the Constitution has been amended only seventeen times since 1791, Hartley persuasively shows that the amendment process is crucial as a way of mobilizing people and furthering social change. The wisdom is right, as a formal matter. This will be a key work in all future discussions of the constitutional amendment process."—Erwin Chemerinsky,