Academic

Robert Spitzer Guest Blogging

By propertyprof

I'm pleased that Robert J. Spitzer of SUNY--Cortland's political science department will be guest blogging with us for a bit.   He is the author, among many other books, of Saving the Constitution from the Lawyers: How Legal Training and Law Reviews Distort Constitutional Meaning, which is appearing this month from Cambridge University Press.   I hope he'll be talking some about that book--and I suspect the rest of us will be talking a lot about it, too.  The Cambridge website describes Saving the Constitution from the Lawyers this way:

This book is a sweeping indictment of the legal profession in the realm of constitutional interpretation. The adversarial, advocacy-based American legal system is well suited to American justice, in which one-sided arguments collide to produce a just outcome. But when applied to constitutional theorizing, the result is selective analysis, overheated rhetoric, distorted facts, and overstated conclusions. Such wayward theorizing finds its way into print in the nation?s over 600 law journals ? professional publications run by law students, not faculty or other professionals ? and peer review is almost never used to evaluate worthiness. The consequences of this system are examined through three timely cases: the presidential veto, the ?unitary theory? of the president?s commander-in-chief power, and the Second Amendment?s ?right to bear arms.? In each case, law reviews were the breeding ground for defective theories that won false legitimacy and political currency. This book concludes with recommendations for reform.

Some of his other books are The Politics of Gun Control from the Congressional Quarterly Press and The Essentials of American Politics, now in its second edition from W.W. Norton.

Welcome!

Alfred Brophy

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on April 16, 2008 (boomark / email).