Originalism

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States by Howard Chandler Christy

Originalism is a method of

constitutional and statutory interpretation. Originalists assert that legal text should be interpreted based on the original understanding at the time of adoption. Originalists object to the idea of the significant legal evolution being driven by judges in a common law framework and instead favor modifications of laws through the Legislature or through Constitutional amendment
.

The term was coined in 1980 and the concept became popular in U.S. conservative legal circles by the 1990s. Originalism nevertheless remains particularly unpopular in many democracies, with the ideology only gaining traction in the West in the United States and, to a lesser extent, Australia.[1] David Fontana argues in the Texas Law Review that originalism has more adherents in countries that underwent revolutions, especially those in Latin America and Africa.[2] Critics of originalism often turn to the competing concept of the Living Constitution, which asserts that a constitution should be interpreted based on the context of current times.[3][4]

"Originalism" can refer to original intent or original meaning. The divisions between the theories relate to what exactly that identifiable original intent or original meaning is: the intentions of the authors or the ratifiers, the original meaning of the text, a combination of the two, or the original meaning of the text but not its expected application. Originalism should not be confused with strict constructionism.[5]

History

The idea that judicial review was distinguished from ordinary political process by the application of principles grew to be understood as fundamental to the legitimacy of judicial interpretation.[6] Proponents of originalism argue that originalism was the primary method of legal interpretation in America from the time of its founding until the time of the New Deal, when competing theories of interpretation grew in prominence.[7][8][9]

Critics of originalism argue it is a new concept, with Ruth Marcus crediting Robert Bork's 1971 article "Neutral Principles and Some First Amendment Problems" as its first manifestation.[10][11][12] The term "originalism" was coined by liberal critic Paul Brest in 1980.[12] It was not until the 1980s, when conservative jurists began to take seats on the Supreme Court, that the debate really began in earnest with the 1990s seeing originalism becoming a broadly endorsed view in the conservative legal movement.[12] "Old originalism" focused primarily on "intent", mostly by default. But that line was largely abandoned in the early 1990s; as "new originalism" emerged, most adherents subscribed to "original meaning" originalism, though there are some intentionalists within new originalism.[citation needed] The first originalists on the court were Alito and Thomas, and they would not have a powerful bloc until the three Trump appointees joined the court.[12]

Originalism has had a profound impact on the law in the United States. Many judges opposed to conservative originalism have adopted some tenets of the philosophy to justify their rulings. For example, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, a frequent critic of conservative originalism, argues that some aspects of the constitution were intentionally broad and vague to allow for future generations to interpret them along with the times.[13] Some widely accepted judicial tests can be said to follow an originalist framework.[citation needed] For example, to determine if a party has a right to a jury in a Federal civil trial under the Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution, judges must examine the right to jury trial as it existed in 1791.[14] Additionally, the Supreme Court has recently used an originalist framework in many cases involving the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution like New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen.[15]

Debate

Support

Neil Gorsuch argued in 2019 that Originalism constrains judges to act as neutral arbiters by having judges set aside their policy preferences when ruling, and that through this Judicial restraint and opposition to Judicial activism Originalists uphold democracy.[16] Gorsuch claims that cases like Dred Scott and Korematsu cannot be defended when examining the Constitution's original meaning.[16] Many originalists are proponents of Constitutional colorblindness.[citation needed]

Opposition

Calvin Terbeek argues that Originalism's appeal in modern times is rooted in conservative political resistance to the

civil rights legislation.[17]

Michael Waldman argues that originalism is a new concept, and not one espoused by the founders.[10] He also criticizes conservatives as embracing originalism because it was conservative, not embracing conservatism because it was originalist.[12]

According to a 2021 paper in the Columbia Law Review, the Founding Fathers did not include a nondelegation doctrine in the Constitution and saw nothing wrong with delegations as a matter of legal theory, contrary to the claims of some originalists.[18]

Ruth Marcus wonders why we should keep the original meaning as fixed when the U.S. was in an agrarian economy where black people were enslaved and women treated like chattel. She argues that the Constitution was written with the understanding that it would apply to circumstances not yet forseen, and with language flexible enough to accommodate them.[12]

Jamal Greene argues that originalism is remarkably unpopular outside the United States (including Canada, South Africa, India, Israel, and most of Europe), where minimalism or textualism are the recommended responses to judicial activism.[19]

Justice William J. Brennan Jr. described originalism as "arrogance cloaked as humility"[20] during a 1985 speech at Georgetown University. In this speech, he also stated “It is arrogant to pretend that from our vantage we can gauge accurately the intent of the framers", and that politicians that claim to do so are motivated purely by political reasons, as they “have no familiarity with the historical record."

Forms

Originalism is an umbrella term for interpretative methods that hold to the "fixation thesis", the notion that an utterance's semantic content is fixed at the time it is uttered.[21] Two alternative understandings about the sources of meaning have been proposed:

Original intent

The original form of originalism is sometimes called intentionalism, or original intent originalism, and looked for the subjective intent of a law's enactors. One problem with this approach is identifying the relevant "lawmaker" whose intent is sought. For instance, the authors of the U.S. Constitution could be the particular

Philadelphia Convention, or debates in the state legislatures, for clues as to their intent.[original research?
]

There are two kinds of intent analysis, reflecting two meanings of the word intent. The first, a rule of common law construction during the Founding Era, is functional intent. The second is motivational intent. To understand the difference, one can use the metaphor of an architect who designs a Gothic church with

]

Problems with intentionalism

However, intentionalism encounters numerous problems when applied to the Constitution. For example, most of the Founders did not leave detailed discussions of what their intent was in 1787, and, while a few did, there is no reason to think that their views should be dispositive of what the rest thought. Moreover, the discussions of the drafters may have been recorded; however they were not available to the ratifiers in each state. The theory of original intent was challenged in a string of law review articles in the 1980s.[24] Specifically, original intent was seen as lacking good answers to three important questions: whether a diverse group such as the framers even had a single intent; if they did, whether it could be determined from two centuries' distance; and, whether the framers themselves would have supported original intent.[25]

In response to this, a different strain of originalism, articulated by (among others) Antonin Scalia,[26] Robert Bork,[27] and Randy Barnett,[28] came to the fore. This is dubbed original meaning.

Original meaning