The US Constitution leaves many basic questions of constitutional law unanswered, whether because they could not be anticipated or because the text is broadly worded or ambiguous.
Consequently, “Interpretation is necessary to determine the meaning of ambiguous provisions of the Constitution or to answer fundamental questions left unaddressed by the drafters,” a new report from the Congressional Research Service explains.
But there are different ways to perform such interpretation that may yield different results.
The new CRS report provides a helpful introduction to the most common “modes” of interpretation, including textualism, original meaning, judicial precedent, pragmatism, moral reasoning, national identity, structuralism, and historical practices.
Interpreting the Constitution is not a task left solely to the Supreme Court; it is also a responsibility of Members of Congress. “Members should vote upon legislation based on their own constitutional interpretations, which may be at odds with the Court’s,” wrote former Sen. Russ Feingold, but “they should not vote for legislation without any thought whatsoever regarding its constitutionality.”
See Modes of Constitutional Interpretation, March 15, 2018.
Other new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following.
The U.S. Export Control System and the Export Control Reform Initiative, updated March 15, 2018
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), updated March 13, 2018
China-U.S. Trade Issues, updated March 14, 2018
Pass-Throughs, Corporations, and Small Businesses: A Look at Firm Size, updated March 15, 2018
Jurisdiction Stripping: When May Congress Prohibit the Courts from Hearing a Case?, CRS Legal Sidebar, March 15, 2018
Membership of the 115th Congress: A Profile, updated March 19, 2018
Women in Congress, 1917-2018: Service Dates and Committee Assignments by Member, and Lists by State and Congress, updated March 19, 2018
In anticipation of future known and unknown health security threats, including new pandemics, biothreats, and climate-related health emergencies, our answers need to be much faster, cheaper, and less disruptive to other operations.
To unlock the full potential of artificial intelligence within the Department of Health and Human Services, an AI Corps should be established, embedding specialized AI experts within each of the department’s 10 agencies.
Investing in interventions behind the walls is not just a matter of improving conditions for incarcerated individuals—it is a public safety and economic imperative. By reducing recidivism through education and family contact, we can improve reentry outcomes and save billions in taxpayer dollars.
The U.S. government should establish a public-private National Exposome Project (NEP) to generate benchmark human exposure levels for the ~80,000 chemicals to which Americans are regularly exposed.