The author seems overly concerned that a Trump-led GOP will abandon the judicial philosophy of Constitutional restraint. News flash: That happened a long time ago. I'm more interested in ending the two-party duopoly than in attempting to rescue the alleged "judicial philosophy" of one of the ruling parties.

Hillary Clinton has said she want's judges who "have experience with real life" so she clearly is in the "living constitution" camp with the rest of the liberals. Judges selected by her will use that "experience" to decide what the constitution should be.

Trump has said that he will elect judges who respect the constitution in the mode of Scalia -- and has actually named a list which gets good marks.

The author demonstrates an appalling lack of REASON when stating that it doesn't matter who Hillary picks because most of the work is not controversial (of course the ones that are change everything).

He doesn't like Trump so he believes Trump will pick people who -- I'm not sure what he thinks they will do but Trump isn't a legal expert and a liar and has had business failures and is the anti-Christ. Ok, he didn't actually say anti-Christ, but he's clearly thinking along those lines.

Clinton will definitively select judges who will vote for a "living constitution". Trump cannot do worse.

THE CONSTITUTION: “LIVING” OR DEAD?

Prompted by the untimely death of a judicial giant, subsequently fueled in part by an asinine comment made by the chief Pachyderm in the Senate, I have again begun to hear the oft-touted prescription that our Constitution must be a “living” constitution. Logically, it therefore follows that the one to which the Founders gave birth, to the extent it is so “living,” must become pronounced as dead and buried.

Here is what our Founders actually did write about the birth of our Constitution and the rule of its Law.

George Washington: “The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution, which at any time exists, ’till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole People, is sacredly obligatory upon all. If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.”

Thomas Jefferson: “Our peculiar security is in possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction. … If it is, then we have no Constitution. … [T]o consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions … would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. … In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

Alexander Hamilton: “If it were to be asked, ‘What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic?’ The answer would be, ‘An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws — the first growing out of the last. … A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government. … [T]he present Constitution is the standard to which we are to cling. Under its banners, bona fide must we combat our political foes — rejecting all changes but through the channel itself provides for amendments.”

James Madison: “I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution. And if that be not the guide in expounding it, there can be no security for a consistent and stable, more than for a faithful exercise of its powers.”

Before I end these quotations with a final one from Jefferson - contained in a letter to William Johnson in 1823, I urge every aspiring/practicing attorney, whether: 1) attending school studying the Law so as to become an attorney, or 2) in the practice of your craft as an attorney, or 3) sitting on the Bench presiding over the adjudication of the Law with fellow attorneys, or finally, 4) good and common sense having seemingly been eradicated from your soul you now reside in the halls of a legislature, your Reason ought remain informed by Jefferson’s timeless admonition that follows:

“On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”

Legal scholars or practitioners – especially those sitting on the SCOTUS, who fail to adhere to the preceding are, by the logic of their failure to do so, destroying the very foundation upon which they claim to base their “construction.” The abysmal track record of our legal “guild” infects the very root of why we find ourselves experiencing the destruction of our fragile flower of freedom.

I must believe there is an increasing awareness of such things, an awareness that must, in due course, become unimpeachable…

Dave Walden
dwlievert@q.com

They must have gotten on the establishment bandwagon in support of Hillary. Too bad. I have said that I thought Johnson was intellectually inconsistent, and appartently REASON magazine is too.

Their motto seems to be, "Beware of Trump, especially if he agrees with you." I guess REASON MAGAZINE used to be reasonable. But in this case the reasoning only makes sense if Trump is a bigger liar than Clinton. That's pretty damn big lying. Over the years, Reason has become so concretized that any deviation from their perceived premises is viewed as the work of infidels.

OMG! She was over the top anti Trump!

This article just confirms my dropping my subscription to "Reason" several years ago. The woman has all this blame fro Trump, excluding who he plans to include in his cabinet, reasoned men and women. She avoids what we know for sure about Hillary, which is, she will appoint liberal justices, and they will not use the Constitution as their guide on decisions. WE know she does not relate to ordinary working people, by her won words. We know she wants sheep, not involved citizens, by her own words to the CFR! Roll the dice, if you know there is a cobra behind door one, run for door two, those are the options. You know the cobra wants your gun, your car, your land, your freedom, how hard can it be?

I am so sorry I renewed my subscription to Reason. It once was a reasonable and logical publication, but now who knows what might come from its pages :-(

Ditto. I can't add to your 100%

I guess it comes down to IF you believe Trump lied about who he would consider for SCOTUS as opposed to WHEN Hillary lies about just about everything. Given her track record the question just might be, "what is a SCOTUS seat going for these days?" We had a Governor go to prison for asking the question as to what a Senator's seat might be worth (that would be the seat vacated by BHO). Pretty good precedent actually!

Better than anything Hildebeaast will pick, period.

Look at her string of anti-Trump articles.
http://reason.com/people/shikha-dalmi...

I find disappointing that Reason Magazine has given up reason in favor of being a lap dog to National Review and sniffing along the same path. The 11 people named by Trump as his potential nominees are all endorsed by Cato. You can bet your bottom dollar that is not true for Hillary.

That's the least coherent article I've ever read. What's the author trying to say? Furthermore he makes no effort to support his pronouncement.

jjj - I am not normally a REASON supporter, but even liberal rags like it are occasionally right. We have no evidence that Donald Trump would actually appoint one of the judges from the list to the SC.

But the single paragraph I could not agree with more was this one:

"It is because a Trump presidency will have a transformative effect on the GOP itself. Indeed, by the time he's done, the GOP will have little use for originalism or limited government. Whatever the external threat a Clinton presidency represents to these ideas, the internal threat that Trump poses is far greater."

Trump's open objections at the convention when Cruz called upon Republicans to vote a Constitutional ticket told me that he has no interest in the Constitution. And his policy suggestions tell me this is spot on.

I will say that the topic was well-developed, but the conclusion was erroneous because it infers that a Hillary presidency would be better. Not so.

Trump is no more a conservative (let alone a Libertarian) than Reagan was a liberal. He's an authoritarian. He has no philosophy. He's a con man pure and simple, grabbing whatever invective will keep him on the headlines. He doesn't take advise. He knows more than the generals. If he could take advise, he'd have kept his campaign on issues and avoided distractions that take it off message. He doesn't believe he's the smartest person in the room. He believes he's the only smart person in the room. His loyalty is not to an ideal but rather to his idea, which is that only he can save the world. He's not a player. He's a puncher. Don't expect him to adhere to anything resembling principles any more than he adheres to scruples. He was a liberal before he was a conservative ("I'm from NY"). For abortion before he thought women should be punished for having an abortion. He's James Taggert. He will collude and cozy with whomever has the ball because he's weak. There's nothing inside, no matter what school he's proud of attending. He needs the tinsel and glitter of his Tower to affirm his existence.
I remember when we were designing the Gulch, we got way off track looking for wonderful architectural houses for our heroes. Scott DeSapio set us straight. the true members of the Gulch wouldn't really have such houses. They wouldn't need such trappings. They know what values matter. Ask yourself. Do you really think Trump would fit in the Gulch?