The Governance Imperative

Governance Imperative blog has a new home!

2010-05-21T13:46:00.000-07:00

We have moved Governance Imperative to Wordpress to give the blog an updated look and more dynamic functionality. Come join us as we continue the conversation!!

Civil Religion in America

2010-05-07T11:08:00.001-07:00

Every society needs some prevailing worldview that binds its conscience together and forms the starting point for its most important debates. Without this common frame of reference, a society simply cannot cohere. This is a good article by Robert Bellah on the role that Civil Religion in America.

The cross symbolizes something. Except when it doesn't.

2010-05-07T10:28:00.000-07:00

This is an excellent op-ed by Stanley Fish. (h/t: Dr. Pursiful)In the latest chapter of this odd project of saving religion by emptying it of its content, Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for a plurality in Salazar v. Buono, ordered a district court to reconsider a ruling that Congress had impermissibly promoted religion by devising a plan designed to prevent the removal of a cross standing in

Jesus did not give us a theory. He gave us a meal.

2010-05-07T09:18:00.000-07:00

Editor's Note: This is the first post on this blog that is of a pointedly religious nature. It has probably not been hard for readers to discern that this author is informed in his worldview by his Christian faith, but this is the first overtly Christian post I have released in this space. While I do not want to see the focus of this blog changed, I would, perhaps, like to toy with expanding it a

Amar's Bill of Rights: the Founder's Second Amendment that became #27

2010-05-07T05:24:00.000-07:00

Money, who has it, and who should get to spend it are pervasive questions that haunt every generation. From Jesus' warning that "you will always have the poor with you" (Matthew 26:11) to our Founding Fathers to today, society and government have always struggled to find the proper balance between preserving liberty and freedom and providing the proper level of coverage (e.g., of food, clothing,

Amar's Bill of Rights: the Founder's First Amendment

2010-05-04T04:37:00.001-07:00

Before we venture into the Bill of Rights that is familiar to us, let us examine what Akhil Reed Amar has to say in his book The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction about the amendment that James Madison listed as first in the First Congress:Article the first.... After the first enumeration required by the first Article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every

Amar's Bill of Rights

2010-05-03T21:54:00.000-07:00

Akhil Reed Amar's book The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction is a fascinating walk, first, through the first ten amendments of the Constitution and, second, the Bill of Rights as recast through the prism of the 14th Amendment. Through this series of posts, I want to look at some of the perspectives Amar brings to each of the first ten amendments - first as the Founders would have

Revisiting the 17th Amendment

2010-04-30T14:48:00.000-07:00

This blog has been a proponent of repealing the 17th Amendment. Mostly this was due to a concern that the balance of power between the States and the Federal Government had shifted too far. But this proposal is more about the ends that we would hope to promote through the means of the amendment's repeal. That is, some mechanism needs to be devised and implemented to give the States direct

The morality of fairy-tales

2010-04-28T09:03:00.000-07:00

If you really read the fairy-tales, you will observe that one idea runs from one end of them to the other—the idea that peace and happiness can only exist on some condition. This idea, which is the core of ethics, is the core of the nursery-tales. The whole happiness of fairyland hangs upon a thread, upon one thread. Cinderella may have a dress woven on supernatural looms and blazing with

Three reasons why the individual mandate is unconstitutional

2010-04-22T18:54:00.000-07:00

The Cato Institute has three well-reasoned arguments for why the individual mandate for health-care insurance is not constitutional.

Who's the conservative now?

2010-04-21T09:10:00.000-07:00

Current uses of the words "conservative" and "liberal" have nothing to do with their traditional meaning. Well, that is not exactly true. They have, perhaps, too much to do with their traditional meaning given the fact that they seem to mean the same on the surface, but the animating spirit is completely different. Two hundred years ago, liberals believed in moving beyond personal government, in

On Paradoxes: freedom that leads to bondage

2010-04-20T09:15:00.000-07:00

If there is one thing that is sure about Western society, and American culture in particular as personified by the worst of Hollywood caricatures, it is that it is full of paradoxes. Chesterton pointed out a number of these that have only blossomed into full-orbed mind-benders since his day. To sample from the endless supply:Despite our conventional wisdom, man is the homemaker and woman is the

Price of peace and union

2010-04-15T08:48:00.000-07:00

"Just as the price of peace and union in 1789 was a bill of rights against the center, so the price of peace and (re)union in 1866 was a bill of rights against the periphery."--Akhil Reed Amar, Bill of Rights

Proposed Amendment: Presidential Question Time

2010-03-17T07:32:00.000-07:00

There is an interesting idea at goldwaterinstitute.org to import the Prime Minister Question Time from Britain and adapt it to the federal and state governments. Apparently, a proposed state constitutional amendment is being considered in Arizona to do just that for the Arizona state government. I like this idea for Congress and the president as well, as it would at least move the politicians

Group-think coming to the Senate?

2010-03-17T06:26:00.001-07:00

David Brooks has a helpful article in yesterday's New York Times that explains why getting rid of the filibuster is such a bad idea and why turning the Senate into a smaller version of the House of Representatives will not serve anyone well in the long run. The Democrats need to tred very carefully with the process of how they work to pass the health care reform legislation. The means are

New paper by Jack Balkin: Commerce

2010-03-07T13:12:00.000-08:00

Jack Balkin, host of the Balkinization blog, has a new paper that takes a look at the so-called "interaction theory" of the commerce clause. This is a deeper dive and analysis of a theory of interpretation I first ran across from Akhil Reed Amar.

The connection between evil acts of a country and the responsibilities of its leaders

2010-02-15T08:47:00.000-08:00

Revered computer scientist Donald Knuth has a page on "Infrequently Asked Questions". (http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/iaq.html) and questions #4 and #5 do a good job of bringing up the issue of the moral responsibility a country's leaders have to its citizens. I don't have any answers to his questions but would to avoid discussing them can't help but to implicitly spread the guilt

The option of nullification

2010-02-09T09:22:00.000-08:00

This is a very good article by libertarian constitutional scholar, Jon Roland, on the serious option of nullification available to state legislatures. In law “nullification” is not repeal or rescission of statutes or executive or judicial actions. It is the result of a sustained, widespread refusal to cooperate with them, until those attempting to enforce the actions are confronted with the

Interest against interest

2010-02-03T11:39:00.000-08:00

"In the next place, there can scarcely be any other adequate security against encroachments upon the constitutional rights and liberties of the people. Algernon Sidney has said with great force, that the legislative power is always arbitrary, and not to be trusted in the hands of any, who are not bound to obey the laws they make. But it is not less true, that it has a constant tendency to

Balanced Government: the one, the few, and the many

2010-01-31T15:07:00.000-08:00

Part of the purpose of this blog is to occasionally look at the foundational principles upon which our constitutional government is based. This essay looks at the principle of the one, the few, and the many and how their representation in the government leads to balanced government.Contemplations on government in the Western tradition go as far back as Greek philosopher Aristotle. In his

America in Decline?

2010-01-29T14:20:00.000-08:00

I like to listen to podcasts of The Diane Rehm Show every now and then. It provides a calmer, more detailed analysis than one can generally glean from Cable News shows. This week I was listening to a podcast of one of last week's shows - "America in Decline?" Diane Rehm started off with a story that one of the country's professional organizations of engineers gave America's infrastructure the

Tony Blankley calls for the Repeal of the 17th Amendment

2010-01-29T14:15:00.000-08:00

This blog, among others, has been calling for the repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment for years. The seed of a movement has to begin somewhere. Why not (partially) here? :-)

Hamilton on Civil liberty

2010-01-27T13:07:00.000-08:00

"Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society. It is not a thing, in its own nature, precarious and dependent on human will and caprice."--Alexander HamiltonNotes: The Farmer Refuted [1775]

Competing visions of democracy in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision re: campaign finance laws

2010-01-27T12:03:00.001-08:00

The blog Comparative Constitutions has a a good piece comparing the different visions of democracy currently seen in Canada and the United States, particularly in the wake of U.S. Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United v. FEC, decided last week. But if the book left any doubt that the United States Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms are anchored in divergent

On the filibuster - Democrats suddenly find religion

2010-01-15T06:04:00.000-08:00

It has recently become fashionable among Democrats and those sympathetic to their programs to decry the supermajority it takes to pass any legislation in the Senate. The new mantra seems to be that it is time to end the use of the filibuster, which requires a vote of 60 senators to stop debate on a particular question or motion before the chamber. The frustration over the legislative process's