More Ground-Breaking Constitutional Theories

More Ground-Breaking Constitutional Theories:

"Last year I blogged about a fascinating new approach to constitutional interpretation that Georgetown law professor Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz was developing, in a Stanford Law Review article called “The Subjects of the Constitution.” Now Nick has a sequel, titled, naturally, “The Objects of the Constitution.” Here’s an excerpt from the abstract:

In short, this Article and its predecessor, The Subjects of the Constitution, amount to a new model of constitutional review, a new lens through which to read the Constitution. This approach begins with a grammatical exercise: identifying the subjects and objects of the Constitution. But this is hardly linguistic casuistry or grammatical fetishism. The subjects and objects of the Constitution are not merely features of constitutional text; they are the pillars of constitutional structure. The very words “federalism” and “separation of powers” are simply shorthand for the deep truth that the Constitution empowers and restricts different governmental actors in different ways.

To elide the who question is to overlook the central feature of our constitutional structure. And it is this structure, above all, that is the object of the Constitution."