E-mail:
Jack Balkin: jackbalkin at yahoo.com
Bruce Ackerman bruce.ackerman at yale.edu
Ian Ayres ian.ayres at yale.edu
Corey Brettschneider corey_brettschneider at brown.edu
Mary Dudziak mary.l.dudziak at emory.edu
Joey Fishkin joey.fishkin at gmail.com
Heather Gerken heather.gerken at yale.edu
Abbe Gluck abbe.gluck at yale.edu
Mark Graber mgraber at law.umaryland.edu
Stephen Griffin sgriffin at tulane.edu
Jonathan Hafetz jonathan.hafetz at shu.edu
Jeremy Kessler jkessler at law.columbia.edu
Andrew Koppelman akoppelman at law.northwestern.edu
Marty Lederman msl46 at law.georgetown.edu
Sanford Levinson slevinson at law.utexas.edu
David Luban david.luban at gmail.com
Gerard Magliocca gmaglioc at iupui.edu
Jason Mazzone mazzonej at illinois.edu
Linda McClain lmcclain at bu.edu
John Mikhail mikhail at law.georgetown.edu
Frank Pasquale pasquale.frank at gmail.com
Nate Persily npersily at gmail.com
Michael Stokes Paulsen michaelstokespaulsen at gmail.com
Deborah Pearlstein dpearlst at yu.edu
Rick Pildes rick.pildes at nyu.edu
David Pozen dpozen at law.columbia.edu
Richard Primus raprimus at umich.edu
K. Sabeel Rahmansabeel.rahman at brooklaw.edu
Alice Ristroph alice.ristroph at shu.edu
Neil Siegel siegel at law.duke.edu
David Super david.super at law.georgetown.edu
Brian Tamanaha btamanaha at wulaw.wustl.edu
Nelson Tebbe nelson.tebbe at brooklaw.edu
Mark Tushnet mtushnet at law.harvard.edu
Adam Winkler winkler at ucla.edu
Cem Tecimer (a doctoral student at Harvard Law School) and I have been busy on a project that centers around a simple question: what relevance do past constitutions have for interpreting and applying an existing constitution? One answer might be: no relevance because a new constitution is, well, new. But that isn't the answer most courts give. Instead, courts (and other constitutional interpreters) routinely make use of predecessor constitutions to interpret the in-force constitution. Cem and I call this practice interconstitutionalism. Cem and I have gathered hundreds of examples of the practice from the state courts (half of the states have had more than one constitution) and from courts in other nations that have had multiple constitutions. We have also looked at uses of the Articles of Confederation in interpreting the U.S. Constitution (recognizing there is some debate about whether the Articles should be deemed a constitution) and uses of the U.S. Constitution in interpreting the confederate constitution. Interconstitutionalism has lots of dimensions (some very surprising) and some interesting implications for thinking about constitutional interpretation, constitutional change, and popular sovereignty. For example, many state courts take the position that in discerning the original public meaning of a constitutional provision, the relevant point in time is not when the existing constitution was ratified but when the provision first occurred in a constitution of the same state. The more we dig the more topics emerge and so we anticipate multiple papers from the project. The draft of our first paper is now posted here. We will be glad to hear about additional examples or other lines of inquiry that occur to readers. My e-mail is mazzonej[@]illinois.edu.