Worse Than Nothing: The Dangerous Fallacy of Originalism

Written by Erwin Chemerinsky

Narrated by Daniel Henning

Why originalism is a flawed, incoherent, and dangerously ideological method of constitutional interpretation

Originalism, the view that the meaning of a constitutional provision is fixed when it is adopted, was once the fringe theory of a few extremely conservative legal scholars but is now a well-accepted mode of constitutional interpretation. Three of the Supreme Court's nine justices explicitly embrace the originalist approach, as do increasing numbers of judges in the lower courts.

Noted legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky gives a comprehensive analysis of the problems that make originalism unworkable as a method of constitutional interpretation. He argues that the framers themselves never intended constitutional interpretation to be inflexible and shows how it is often impossible to know what the "original intent" of any particular provision was. Perhaps worst of all, though its supporters tout it as a politically neutral and objective method, originalist interpretation tends to disappear when its results fail to conform to modern conservative ideology.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Sep 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9798765054482

Erwin Chemerinsky

Erwin Chemerinsky is the founding dean of the University of California Irvine Law School. He is a graduate of Northwestern University and Harvard Law School. After teaching law at DePaul College of Law, he moved to the University of Southern California, where he taught from 1983 to 2004. He frequently argued cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals in various jurisdictions and occasionally before the U.S. Supreme Court. He is well known in Los Angeles, where he helped draft a new city charter (he chaired the charter commission), issued a report on the city's police department, and commented on the O.J. Simpson trial. From 2004 to 2008 he taught at Duke University School of Law, before returning to southern California to start the law school at UCI. He is the author of Constitutional Law: Principles and Policies, a widely used law school textbook.

Reviews for Worse Than Nothing

[Logan Blake · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A concise deconstruction of originalism useful to both liberals and conservatives. Dean Chemerinksy’s command of the subject matter will teach even the most experienced lawyer something new.