Just out from the New Press:
Madison’s Music: On Reading the First Amendment, by
Burt Neuborne (NYU Law School). A description from the Press:
What
if most of what we think we know about the First Amendment is just
wrong? For years, the Supreme Court has treated the First Amendment like
a laundry list of isolated words, stopping every once in a while to
pull a couple of words out of the full text and claiming to be able to
use the artificially isolated words as an infallible guide to what the
First Amendment really means. Burt Neuborne, who has been one of the
nation’s foremost constitutional lawyers for the past fifty years,
argues that the Supreme Court has gotten it all wrong. If, he argues,
judges would only look at the First Amendment’s full text—all forty-five
words—they would discover Madison’s music, a First Amendment that is
democracy’s best friend.
Neuborne, who was the national legal director of the ACLU during the
Reagan presidency and has argued many cases before the Supreme Court,
explains that the remarkably disciplined order and structure of the
ideas in Madison’s forty-five-word First Amendment—beginning with
freedom of conscience in the religion clauses; moving on to freedoms of
speech, press, and assembly in that order; and ending with freedom to
petition for redress of grievances—tells the story of democracy in
action. Madison’s music, he argues, is the chronicle of a democratic
idea conceived in the free conscience of a free citizen, articulated by a
free speaker, disseminated widely by a free press, turned into a
political movement by freely assembled people, and enacted into law
through the petition clause. No other rights-bearing document, beginning
with the Magna Carta in 1215, comes close to such a careful narrative
of democracy in action. Neuborne argues that the Supreme Court’s misuse
of what he calls “an imperial Free Speech Clause” to blot out Madison’s
democratic music has led to an arbitrary First Amendment that turns
democracy over to hugely wealthy individuals and corporations,
encourages cynical officials to disenfranchise the weak, and allows
politicians to manipulate the system to stay in power. Recovering the
ability to hear Madison’s music, he argues, is the first step to
reclaiming our democracy for everyone—not just the rich.
A few blurbs:
“A brilliant book that offers an original and insightful way of understanding the First Amendment and all of the Bill of Rights. Professor Neuborne grounds his analysis in a wonderful telling of history and uses it to offer new ways to deal with some of the most important contemporary issues facing American democracy, such as campaign finance and partisan gerrymandering. This beautifully written book is a must read.” — Erwin Chemerinsky
“Simply wonderful . . . fully reflective of Burt Neuborne’s learning, insight, and wit.” — Norman Dorsen
More information is available
here.
