A True Constitutional Crisis Is Rare in American History. Here ’s Why

Constitutional crisis is a term that’s been thrown around a lot lately in American politics. But, as fans of the founding document celebrate Constitution Day on Monday — in honor of Sunday’s 230th anniversary of its signing — they have an additional reason to celebrate: true examples of such crises have been relatively rare in the nation’s history. Not that everyone agrees on what exactly qualifies as such a crisis. Even experts may draw the line at different points. After all, disagreements are a supposed to be part of the U.S. political system, and emergencies are an unfortunate part of any government. But, though their lists of actual crises may vary, scholars agree that in order to qualify as a true crisis the incident must be more than a conflict. To deserve such a name, the conflict must also involve a breakdown in ordinary procedure and an unusually strong reaction to that breakdown. “To me, a constitutional crisis is when the branches of government in their ordinary functioning cease to resolve that conflict,” explains Linda Monk, author of The Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution. And Michael Les Benedict, author of Preserving the Constitution, echoes that crisis situations come when “the ordinary modes of resolving the conflict are not working.” A third definition, offered by constitutional scholars Sanford Levinson and Jack M. Balkin in a University of Pennsylvania Law Review article on th...
Source: TIME.com: Top Science and Health Stories - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Constitution politics Source Type: news