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Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (And How We the People Can Correct It) [Hardcover]

Sanford Levinson (Author)
3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews) |

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Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (And How We the People Can Correct It) Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (And How We the People Can Correct It) 3.3 out of 5 stars (23)
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Book Description

Publication Date: September 28, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0195307518 | ISBN-13: 978-0195307511
The Constitution is one of the most revered documents in American politics. Yet this is a document that regularly places in the White House candidates who did not in fact get a majority of the popular vote. It gives Wyoming the same number of votes as California, which has seventy times the population of the Cowboy State. And it offers the President the power to overrule both houses of Congress on legislation he disagrees with on political grounds. Is this a recipe for a republic that reflects the needs and wants of today's Americans?

Taking a hard look at our much-venerated Constitution, Sanford Levinson here argues that too many of its provisions promote either unjust or ineffective government. Under the existing blueprint, we can neither rid ourselves of incompetent presidents nor assure continuity of government following catastrophic attacks. Less important, perhaps, but certainly problematic, is the appointment of Supreme Court judges for life. Adding insult to injury, the United States Constitution is the most difficult to amend or update of any constitution currently existing in the world today.

Democratic debate leaves few stones unturned, but we tend to take our basic constitutional structures for granted. Levinson boldly challenges the American people to undertake a long overdue public discussion on how they might best reform this most hallowed document and construct a constitution adequate to our democratic values.

Editorial Reviews

Review


"Levinson's critical discussion of the founding document is bold, bracingly unromantic, and filled with illuminating insights. He accomplishes an unlikely feat, which is to make a really serious argument for a new constitutional convention, one that is founded squarely on democratic ideals. Levinson has valuably shown that parts of America's founding document are seriously flawed, and he has demonstrated that both representatives and citizens should treat the document not with "sanctimonious reverence" but as the revisable product of fallible human beings."--Cass R. Sunstein, The New Republic


"Admirably gutsy and unfashionable."--Michael Kinsley, The New York Times Book Review


"Levinson locates the flaws of the system in America's founding document itself--the Constitution. His book is compelling because of [his] breadth of erudition and his willingness to propose solutions to the flaws he perceives."--John O. McGinnis, The Wall Street Journal, Northwestern University School of Law


"Everyone who cares about how our government works should read this thoughtful book."--Washington Lawyer


"Sanford Levinson's irreverent tour reveals the subtle and not-so-subtle ways our Constitution blocks the responsible practice of democratic government. We ignore his critique at our peril."--Bruce Ackerman, Yale Law School


"Sanford Levinson is the most imaginative, innovative and provocative constitutional scholar of our time. His new, sharp critique of the Constitution makes for bracing reading and forces us to confront what we really think of the Constitution. Every American needs to read this book and see if he or she agrees with Levinson that it is necessary to abandon the Framer's work and adopt a fundamentally new system of government. This work cannot be ignored."--Walter Dellinger, O'Melveny & Myers, Former Acting Solicitor General of the United States


"In an ideal world, every citizen would read this book and ponder the profound issues it raises about how to achieve democracy in our republic. As Socratic in spirit, as it is engaging in style, this is a marvelous guide to the pros and cons of democratic reform. Take up its invitation to look freshly at institutions you have taken for granted."--James Fishkin, Stanford University


"Few scholars are in the same league with Professor Sanford Levinson when it comes to raising provocative questions about the Constitution and conventional modes of interpreting its provisions. Whether one agrees or disagrees with his analyses and prescriptions is largely beside the point; what matters is that he forces readers to think about dimensions of constitutional questions that ordinarily go unnoticed. In Our Undemocratic Constitution, Professor Levinson is at his thought-provoking best."--Robert P. George, Princeton University


"A lucidly written and compelling work, Our Undemocratic Constitution asks hard questions about the nature of our founding document. Levinson, who is one of the nation's leading constitutional scholars, argues here that much about the Constitution stands in need of dramatic change. This is a timely and important book, and our country would benefit if its ideas provoked real debate."--Elena Kagan, Dean, Harvard Law School


From the Back Cover

Advance Praise for Our Undemocratic Constitution

"Sanford Levinson's irreverent tour reveals the subtle and not-so-subtle ways our Constitution blocks the responsible practice of democratic government. We ignore his critique at our peril." -- Bruce Ackerman, Yale Law School

"Sanford Levinson is the most imaginative, innovative and provocative constitutional scholar of our time. His new, sharp critique of the Constitution makes for bracing reading and forces us to confront what we really think of the Constitution. Every American needs to read this book and see if he or she agrees with Levinson that it is necessary to abandon the Framer's work and adopt a fundamentally new system of government. This work cannot be ignored." -- Walter Dellinger, O'Melveny & Myers, Former Acting Solicitor General of the United States

"In an ideal world, every citizen would read this book and ponder the profound issues it raises about how to achieve democracy in our republic. As Socratic in spirit, as it is engaging in style, this is a marvelous guide to the pros and cons of democratic reform. Take up its invitation to look freshly at institutions you have taken for granted." -- James Fishkin, Stanford University

"Few scholars are in the same league with Professor Sanford Levinson when it comes to raising provocative questions about the Constitution and conventional modes of interpreting its provisions. Whether one agrees or disagrees with his analyses and prescriptions is largely beside the point; what matters is that he forces readers to think about dimensions of constitutional questions that ordinarily go unnoticed. In Our Undemocratic Constitution, Professor Levinson is at his thought-provoking best." -- Robert P. George, Princeton University

"A lucidly written and compelling work, Our Undemocratic Constitution asks hard questions about the nature of our founding document. Levinson, who is one of the nation's leading constitutional scholars, argues here that much about the Constitution stands in need of dramatic change. This is a timely and important book, and our country would benefit if its ideas provoked real debate." -- Elena Kagan, Dean, Harvard Law School

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 248 pages
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (September 28, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0195307518
  • ISBN-13: 978-0195307511
  • Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #93,042 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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More About the Author

› Visit Amazon's Sanford Levinson Page
Sanford Levinson
Sanford Levinson holds the W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair in Law at the University of Texas Law School. His is the author of over 200 articles in professional and more popular journals, and has written numerous books.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
If you are looking for an unvarnished, unbiased critique of the U.S. Constitution along with some recommended changes and recommendations on how to amend, I highly recommend this book. However, this book has a couple of major flaws that cause me to not support the author's promotion of our holding a constitutional convention in the near future.

What I liked about the book is the conversational tone, the lack of rhetoric and legalese, and while the author Sanford Levinson is a proud liberal, he's extremely fair, unbiased, and respectful to Americans who may not share his political ideology. In fact, the author stays away from reviewing or promoting any amendments that are hot-button social issues like abortion, gay marriage, or current special interest attempts to establish religion.

Instead the author mostly focuses on what he believes are structural weaknesses, like the unequal representation of voters regarding how representation is structured in the Senate or when voting for President or his belief that judges should be term-limited rather than having lifetime appointments. This isn't to say the book is boring by sticking to structural issues, in fact quite the opposite, the book is filled with anecdotes like how senators from smaller states wield enormous power over senators from large states or how campaign strategies could improve if we scrapped the electoral college when voting for President and went to a popular election.

The highest compliment I can pay the author beyond a well-written book is that he changed my position on a number of issues. I embrace republican values and the fact our founders created a constitutional republic rather than a democracy; in fact I was and remain extremely suspicious of pure democracy just like the framing architects (i.e., Madison, Hamilton, et al.). However, the author makes a strong case that more democracy in regards to each voter having equal power would improve the will of the people to influence their government in a manner that doesn't risk our liberties.

I do believe Dr. Levinson's editorial decisions leaves the book flawed in two areas.

Most Americans and the media are woefully ignorant regarding what democracy is relative to what we established in 1787, which was a constitutional republic especially in terms of how liberty is impacted by each form of government. These differences were a primary concern of James Madison's when he evaluated different forms of government and created and successfully introduced the framework of a constitutional republic at the Philadelphia Convention (see Wikipedia page for "constitutional republic" for a pretty good definition and comparison). Indeed, Madison focused strictly on past republics to construct the framework of our government and often dismissed democracies as little better than monarchies.

I believe Dr. Levinson should have included a chapter early in the book that discussed the differences between our republican form of government upon ratification and how its evolved towards a more democratic form of government, and the benefits but also the costs and risks of continued democratization in terms of individual liberty which are much better protected in a republic than a demoracy.

This leads to the second weakness of the book. While writing the book, Dr. Levinson obviously had a lot of concern thrown at him by liberals (pg. 174) regarding the frightening prospect of a constitutional convention in which the results of such a convention severely limited or eradicated many of our rights so unpopular with social conservatives (i.e., equal protection, judicial power to protect our rights from unconstitutional legislation, the 9th amendment, establishment clause, and full incorporation of the 14th amendment).

Dr. Levinson calls for a constitutional convention in hopes his concerns are addressed, while failing to address the fact that some interest groups will certainly leverage this opportunity to meet their political agenda as well that directly contradict the founding ideals of liberty by the framers. In fact he correctly terms this liberal concern "Madisonian" for reasons provided above.

His response to what I believe is a valid concern by liberals is a mere one paragraph that is unsupported by any empirical evidence, it's merely a vague notion held by Dr. Levinson's faith in the democratic process in spite of our continued inability to currently hold meaningful debates free of rhetorical fallacies on other hot-button subjects (e.g., gay marriage, where conservatives refuse to even discuss equal protection rights, instead the Media allows them to get away with opposing gay marriage due to their personal religious beliefs without challenging them on equal protection grounds).

These two flaws are not enough to stop me from recommending this book. The book really helped me to more critically analyze many features of our Constitution that do prevent a more optimal form of government, features I took for granted can not be changed where Levinson effectively challenges our inertia. The book also opened the door to my evaluating the Constitution in a more critical manner, which I greatly appreciate Levinson doing for me.
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45 of 56 people found the following review helpful
Forever Unfinished January 6, 2007
Format:Hardcover
For better or worse (I think, worse), our educational system tends to paint a semi-religious portrait of the Founding Fathers and their most hallowed offspring-- the Constitution. Questioning the wisdom or perfection of either, I'm afraid, strikes too many Americans as unpatriotic, at best, and treasonous, at worst. For proof, take a look at reviewer Horton's thoroughly ignorant version of this mind-set. It's ironic that those who would honor the nation's ideals by turning our Constitution into Holy Writ, at the same time, do the most to dishonor its democratic spirit.

Levinson's brief text (180 pages, excluding the helpful appendicies), goes beyond the popular depiction to point up those provisions among the six Articles and twenty-seven Amendments whose democratic pedigree are in serious doubt. The Electoral College is probably the best known and most egregious of these. Others, perhaps less glaring, but no less questionable, include distribution of the Senate, life tenure for Supreme Court justices, excessive presidential power, and a half-dozen other dubious provisions. You may agree with some, disagree with others, but all merit second thoughts in light of decades of practical experience.

It's important to point out that Levinson does not take up the hornet's nest topic of Constitutional interpretation. There is no discussion of whether Constitutional provisions establish a Right of Privacy or a Right to Equal Access, or other questions of interpretation that tend to rile partisan emotion. Instead, the focus remains exclusively on those structural aspects requiring no judicial review, as, for example, the clear provision limiting Senatorial representation to two per-state. So readers looking for ammunition for-or-against abortion or in behalf of affirmative action, for example, should look elsewhere. In fact, Levinson's concern goes beyond interpretation to elements of the bedrock itself. (He does, however, flirt with aspects of interpretation concerning the matter of presidential powers.)

The book's tone remains soberly analytical throughout, adopting a middle course between dry detachment, on one hand, and partisan emotion, on the other. And while I think that's the proper course for making his case, it's hardly the type of rhetoric geared to arouse the public into the remedial action that remains a secondary aim of the work-- and may also account for the rather skimpy response on this particular website. Nonetheless, the work serves to remind those who will listen, that, despite much well-meaning veneration, the Constitution remains forever an unfinished document.
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33 of 42 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
According to Levinson "The Constitution is both insufficiently democratic, [...] and significantly dysfunctional" and therefore "we should not longer express our blind devotion to it". Levinson wants the reader to join him in a call for a new constitutional convention, and "Our Undemocratic Constitution" is the argument for that cause. Each reader must decide if Levinson succeeds.

Levinson takes the reader through the many shortcomings, pitfalls, and inadequacies of our federal Constitution. Regardless of opinion "Our Undemocratic Constitution is wanting, the first of which is a First Chapter.

Levinson presents the United States as "a country that professes to believe in democracy." Unfortunately, Levinson never presents the reader with his clear idea of democracy let along explain why it is better than what the United States is - a Constitution Republic, or a "constraint" democracy (professions notwithstanding). It has been over 150 years since the use of the phrase, "The United states ARE..." and even more years since a person called himself or herself a "Virginian" or "Carolinian". Presidential power and federalism has grown dramatically, but can we so easily say that we are now one big country and no longer a collection of "states"? Perhaps we can, but not without explanation. Unfortunately, Levison provides no explanation of his democracy and why it is superior and begins his book with the assumed premise that Federalism and a more direct democracy (?) is implicitly better.

The Journey takes the reader through unequal representation, bicameralism, the Electoral College, the tenure of federal judges, and the process required to amend the Constitution. During that journey the reader will meet some Straw men. The potential of a "Constitutional dictatorship" as a result of a "lame duck presidency" WAS an issue before 1933, before the 20th amendment to the Constitution. The inability to remove "disabled president" is noteworthy before 1967 and before the ratification of the 25th amendment, but not today. Levison freely admits this to be the case, yet still presents these as argument to throw out the baby because the bathwater WAS dirty 40 years ago.

The journey is filled with many, perhaps too many, assumed premise, "I suspect that most person are unconvinced..." pg 65, "one could easily read..." pg 71 "If one reads...which is certainly the most plausible reading, then it could well be..."pg 72 "It should be obvious that..." pg 87. "Easily read", "most plausible", "obvious that? Perhaps...but not without more.

Our Undemocratic Constitution does a fine job of shining the light on many aspects of our Constitution that are wanting. Levinson writes for the layman. It is because of this that Levinson should be more cautious and provide the reader with a first Chapter and more than the 180pg that are presented.

Levinson fails to address the many counter arguments to his position that exist both today and in 1787. He also fails to sufficiently differentiate between dirty bathwater and a dirty baby. Our Undemocratic Constitution addresses the dysfunctional of our current constitution without discussing what a future constitution and the process of getting there might look like. This is a deliberate choice by Levinson, but by doing so Levinson avoids the hardest task of all, addressing the arduous task of getting 300,000,000 people from 50 states to agree. Perhaps the words of Benjamin Franklin, following the singing of the "current" Constitution, provides a critical question for a reader:

"I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution: For when you assemble a Number of men to have the Advantage of their joint Wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men all their Prejudices, their Passions, their Errors of Opinion, their local Interests, and their selfish Views..." September, 17th, 1787
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Review: An Undemocratic Constitution.
Haven't read it yet, but i've heard from other people that it's a great read. I'll find out sooner or later when i get to reading it. Read more
Published 7 months ago by RedJaguar89
decent
I bought this product as "used-good" but what i did not expect was the dented sides and writing throughout the book. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Joanne
The Political Supreme Court
Sanford Levinson attempts to define and explain the creation of, what he terms, an "insufficiently democratic" and "significantly dysfunctional" constitution (9). Read more
Published 8 months ago by J. W. Bradfield
Constitution or Condemnation?
This book was merely a reactionary's response to the presidency of George Bush and his utter disdain towards the Republican party. Read more
Published on February 10, 2010 by James F. Chase
Good overall but had highlight marks
It was in nearly perfect shape. It came in when it said it would. There were highlight marks inside the text that was not in the description of the product. Read more
Published on September 8, 2009 by Lue
great!!!!
Honestly, I have bought used books online and thought that this one was going to be in quality the same as the others.... I was wrong! Read more
Published on September 7, 2009 by Belem Rangel
A critical review
This book is written in the style of law-school teaching. The author raises questions, and indicates rather than explains. Read more
Published on March 30, 2009 by Deep Reader
Why we need a Second Constitutional Convention
Sanford Levinson has written an excellent essay which suggests that a Second Constitutional Convention is required to restore American democracy. Read more
Published on December 11, 2008 by Thomas W. Sulcer
If the last decade isn't proof enough...
Thank you Dr. Levinson for a genuinely thoughtful argument concerning our constitution and its deep need for substantial revision. Read more
Published on April 24, 2008 by Patricia R. Dunlap
Dissapointed at clarity of thoughts
Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (And How We the People Can Correct It)Although I believe the author is on the right track about how our... Read more
Published on April 23, 2008 by James Davis
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