Brief thoughts on Con Law that make my tweets this week (maybe) make more sense. I actually think originalism can be a very useful tool to address many but not all Constitutional controversies. Not the only tool, but certainly a useful one.

No one in American politics is offering this, but if courts really tried to interpret constitutional rules based on the original meaning of all Constitutional provisions, it would have big problems but it would still be an improvement over the status quo and move things left.

The most egregious SCOTUS precedents of the last few decades have very little bases in, or are contrary to, the original meaning of related constitutional provisions. And a true originalist interpretation of the 14th and 15th Amendment voting clauses would be almost revolutionary

There are books and books about this, but at tweet level: There were many founding fathers who wanted a strong government involved in the economy. And the Radical Republicans wanted to end voting impediments by race and a truly open-ended commitment to general political equality.