United States | The Supreme Court

America tussles over a newly fashionable constitutional theory

“Originalism” is pushing the law to the right. Could it be a tool for progressives?

(Original Caption) The signing of the United States Constitution in 1787. Undated painting by Stearns.
|New York

In 1987, the last time the Senate voted to reject a president’s pick for the Supreme Court, a constitutional theory seemingly went down with the nominee. Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan’s ill-fated choice, told senators that judges should be guided not by their own lights but by the intentions of those who drafted the constitution. To read values into it that the framers “did not put there”, he said (referring to liberal rulings of the 1960s and 1970s, among others), is to “deprive the people of their liberty”. Roe v Wade, and rulings such as that protecting a right to contraception, were wrong or even “pernicious”: they had nothing to do with the true meaning of the constitution.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “History test”

Walkies

From the August 20th 2022 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

Discover more

Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba addresses the media after pleading not guilty to federal charges at the Thad Cochran United States Courthouse in Jackson.

An FBI sting operation catches Jackson’s mayor taking big bribes

What the sensational undoing of the black leader means for Mississippi’s failing capital

Downtown of Metropolis, Illinois, showing the Super Museum and a gift shop.

America’s rural-urban divide nurtures wannabe state-splitters

What’s behind a new wave of secessionism


A container ship sails as the sun sets in Bayonne, New Jersey, United States.

Does Donald Trump have unlimited authority to impose tariffs?

Yes, but other factors could hold him back


As Jack Smith exits, Donald Trump’s allies hint at retribution

The president-elect hopes to hand the Justice Department to loyalists

Donald Trump and Tulsi Gabbard are coming for the spooks

The president-elect’s intelligence picks suggest a radical agenda