How to Interpret the Constitution

Written by Cass R. Sunstein

Narrated by Graham Winton

From New York Times bestselling author Cass Sunstein, a timely and powerful argument for rethinking how the U.S. Constitution is interpreted

The U.S. Supreme Court has eliminated the right to abortion and is revisiting other fundamental questions today—about voting rights, affirmative action, gun laws, and much more. Once-arcane theories of constitutional interpretation are profoundly affecting the lives of all Americans.
In this brief and urgent book, Harvard Law School professor Cass Sunstein provides a lively introduction to competing approaches to interpreting the Constitution—and argues that the only way to choose one is to ask whether it would change American life for the better or worse. If a
method of interpretation would eliminate the right of privacy, allow racial segregation, or obliterate free speech, it would be unacceptable for that reason.

But some Supreme Court justices are committed to “originalism,” arguing that the meaning of the Constitution is settled by how it was publicly understood when it was ratified.

Originalists insist that their approach is dictated by the Constitution. That, Sunstein argues, is a big mistake. The Constitution doesn’t contain instructions for its own interpretation.

Any approach to constitutional interpretation needs to be defended in terms of its broad effects—what it does to our rights and our institutions. It must respect those rights and institutions—and safeguard the conditions for democracy itself.

Passionate and compelling, How to Interpret the Constitution is essential reading for anyone who is concerned about how the Supreme Court is changing the rights and lives of Americans today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798889567349

Cass R. Sunstein

Cass R. Sunstein is the nation’s most-cited legal scholar who, for the past fifteen years, has been at the forefront of behavioral economics. From 2009 to 2012, he served as the administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Since that time, he has served in the US government in multiple capacities and worked with the United Nations and the World Health Organization, where he chaired the Technical Advisory Group on Behavioral Insights and Sciences for Health during the COVID-19 pandemic. He is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School. His book Nudge, coauthored with Richard Thaler, was a national bestseller. In 2018, he was the recipient of the Holberg Prize from the government of Norway, sometimes described as equivalent of the Nobel Prize for law and the humanities. He lives in Boston and Washington, DC, with his wife, children, and labrador retrievers.