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by roenxi
1428 days ago
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How much of an influence does constitutional law really have on the government? There is a minor-moderate crisis in US politics at the moment about whether the constitution protects abortion based on a tortured reading of the text, so it doesn't seem like the physical documents are an important factor. I respect all the positions in that debate, but if that is a serious point of contention then there is a real question as to why a constitutional scholar would have any advantage at all in Congress. For anyone. Not saying they'd necessarily be bad, but a good cross section of community members would be better than a good cross section of the legal fraternity. |
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Well, ideally it would matter a little bit. Kind of like you want a contractor to be well versed in local building codes you'd want a politician to be well versed in the local laws.But considering most of the law isn't actually in the constitution the use of knowing the constitution very well isn't that useful.
> Not saying they'd necessarily be bad, but a good cross section of community members would be better than a good cross section of the legal fraternity.
For an elected congress critters I think there should be a bias towards lawyers and other law-adjacent professions considering they're going to create laws that that field needs to use. However, for appointed officials I think is when the cross section would need to start coming up. I suspect a random teacher is a much better pick for DoE than a loan officer. I think it would be more important that their staff is a cross section of the community than the actual figurehead.
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> There is a minor-moderate crisis in US politics at the moment about whether the constitution protects abortion based on a tortured reading of the text
Quick aside, we got to this point because one party (Democratic) has ran previously on passing laws that would protect abortions and never did while another party (Republicans) have ran previously on passing laws that would restrict it and never did. Which leaves the two branches of government that can weigh in and they both have. Of course they will weigh in how they can and for the Supreme Court that's via Constitutionality.