What is the best way to interpret the Constitution to ensure that rights are protected and the government is kept in check? Who has the better method, Bork (originalism) or Brennan (living constitution)?Use evidence from the article. Round 1: Robert Bork, Hearing before the Senate Judiciary CommitteeHow should a judge go about finding the law? The only legitimate way, in my opinion, is byattempting to discern what those who made the law intended. The intentions of the lawmakersgovern whether the lawmakers are the Congress of the United States enacting a statute or whetherthey are those who ratified our Constitution and its various Amendments.Where the words are precise and the facts simple, that is a relatively easy task. No one will fussover the interpretation of a law that states "School Zone: 25 mph limit from 7am-4pm." Where thewords are general, as is the case with some of the most profound protections of our liberties in theBill of Rights and in the Civil War Amendments the task is far more complex. We have seen thesecases come up throughout the esteemed history of the Court; The Necessary and Proper Clause,the Vesting Clause, The 10th Amendment, all have presented moments of doubt and confusion. Itmust be the job of the Court, in these circumstances, to find the principle or value that was intendedto be protected and to see that it is protected.As I wrote in an opinion for our court, the judge's responsibility "is to discern how the framersvalues, defined in the context of the world they knew, apply in the world we know." If a judgeabandons original intention as his guide, there is no law available to him and he begins to legislatea social agenda for the American people. That goes well beyond his legitimate power. This is thefoundation of Originalism. The Constitution must remain an unwavering lighthouse in a sea ofchange. If she should buckle, the republic will collapse along with it. Living ConstitutionRound 2: William Brennan, Constitutional InterpretationConstitutional interpretation is no easy task, and we should be highly suspicious of those who offer simplesolutions to complex problems. There are those who find legitimacy in fidelity to what they call "the intentionsof the Framers." This view demands that Justices discern exactly what the Framers thought about thequestion under consideration and simply follow that intention in resolving the case before them. It is a viewthat feigns purity and lack of bias over the specific judgments of those who came before. But in truth it is littlemore than arrogance cloaked as humility. It is arrogant to pretend that from our vantage we can gaugeaccurately the intent of the Framers on application of principle to specific, contemporary questions. All toooften, sources of potential enlightenment such as records of the Constitutional Convention provide sparse orambiguous evidence of the original intention. Typically, all that can be gleaned is that the Framersthemselves did not agree about the application or meaning of particular constitutional provisions, and hidtheir differences in cloaks of generality.We current justices read the Constitution in the only way that we can: as Twentieth Century Americans. Welook to the history of the time of framing and to the intervening history of interpretation. But the ultimatequestion must be, what do the words of the text mean in our time? For the genius of the Constitution restsnot in any static meaning it might have had in a world that is dead and gone, but in the adaptability of itsgreat principles to cope with current problems and current needs. What the constitutional fundamentalsmeant to the wisdom of other times cannot be their measure to the vision of our time. Similarly, what thosefundamentals mean for us, our descendants will learn, cannot be the measure to the vision of their time.Interpretation must account for the transformative purpose of the text. Our Constitution was not intended topreserve a preexisting society but to make a new one, to put in place new principles that the prior politicalcommunity had not sufficiently recognized. Thus, for example, when we interpret the Civil War Amendmentsto the charter--abolishing slavery, guaranteeing blacks equality under law, and guaranteeing blacks the rightto vote we must remember that those who put them in place had no desire to enshrine the status quo. Theirgoal was to make over their world, to eliminate all vestige of slave caste. Jefferson himself suggested weremake the Constitution every twenty years, and that no future generation ought to be bound to the moralsand principles of those who came before? The founders did not solve political science. The Constitution is aliving, breathing document, and those who purport to believe in Originalism are masking their own live beliefsbehind our veneration of the founding era.

Question

What is the best way to interpret the Constitution to ensure that rights are protected and the government is kept in check? Who has the better method, Bork (originalism) or Brennan (living constitution)?Use evidence from the article. Round 1: Robert Bork, Hearing before the Senate Judiciary CommitteeHow should a judge go about finding the law? The only legitimate way, in my opinion, is byattempting to discern what those who made the law intended. The intentions of the lawmakersgovern whether the lawmakers are the Congress of the United States enacting a statute or whetherthey are those who ratified our Constitution and its various Amendments.Where the words are precise and the facts simple, that is a relatively easy task. No one will fussover the interpretation of a law that states &#34;School Zone: 25 mph limit from 7am-4pm.&#34; Where thewords are general, as is the case with some of the most profound protections of our liberties in theBill of Rights and in the Civil War Amendments the task is far more complex. We have seen thesecases come up throughout the esteemed history of the Court; The Necessary and Proper Clause,the Vesting Clause, The 10th Amendment, all have presented moments of doubt and confusion. Itmust be the job of the Court, in these circumstances, to find the principle or value that was intendedto be protected and to see that it is protected.As I wrote in an opinion for our court, the judge's responsibility &#34;is to discern how the framersvalues, defined in the context of the world they knew, apply in the world we know.&#34; If a judgeabandons original intention as his guide, there is no law available to him and he begins to legislatea social agenda for the American people. That goes well beyond his legitimate power. This is thefoundation of Originalism. The Constitution must remain an unwavering lighthouse in a sea ofchange. If she should buckle, the republic will collapse along with it. Living ConstitutionRound 2: William Brennan, Constitutional InterpretationConstitutional interpretation is no easy task, and we should be highly suspicious of those who offer simplesolutions to complex problems. There are those who find legitimacy in fidelity to what they call &#34;the intentionsof the Framers.&#34; This view demands that Justices discern exactly what the Framers thought about thequestion under consideration and simply follow that intention in resolving the case before them. It is a viewthat feigns purity and lack of bias over the specific judgments of those who came before. But in truth it is littlemore than arrogance cloaked as humility. It is arrogant to pretend that from our vantage we can gaugeaccurately the intent of the Framers on application of principle to specific, contemporary questions. All toooften, sources of potential enlightenment such as records of the Constitutional Convention provide sparse orambiguous evidence of the original intention. Typically, all that can be gleaned is that the Framersthemselves did not agree about the application or meaning of particular constitutional provisions, and hidtheir differences in cloaks of generality.We current justices read the Constitution in the only way that we can: as Twentieth Century Americans. Welook to the history of the time of framing and to the intervening history of interpretation. But the ultimatequestion must be, what do the words of the text mean in our time? For the genius of the Constitution restsnot in any static meaning it might have had in a world that is dead and gone, but in the adaptability of itsgreat principles to cope with current problems and current needs. What the constitutional fundamentalsmeant to the wisdom of other times cannot be their measure to the vision of our time. Similarly, what thosefundamentals mean for us, our descendants will learn, cannot be the measure to the vision of their time.Interpretation must account for the transformative purpose of the text. Our Constitution was not intended topreserve a preexisting society but to make a new one, to put in place new principles that the prior politicalcommunity had not sufficiently recognized. Thus, for example, when we interpret the Civil War Amendmentsto the charter--abolishing slavery, guaranteeing blacks equality under law, and guaranteeing blacks the rightto vote we must remember that those who put them in place had no desire to enshrine the status quo. Theirgoal was to make over their world, to eliminate all vestige of slave caste. Jefferson himself suggested weremake the Constitution every twenty years, and that no future generation ought to be bound to the moralsand principles of those who came before? The founders did not solve political science. The Constitution is aliving, breathing document, and those who purport to believe in Originalism are masking their own live beliefsbehind our veneration of the founding era.

Accepted Answer

In the realm of constitutional law, the task of interpreting the Constitution becomes a pivotal…

What is the best way to interpret the Constitution to ensure that rights are protected and the government is kept in check? Who has the better method, Bork (originalism) or Brennan (living constitution)? Use evidence from the article.