SideBar Welcomes Historian Lawrence Goldstone

SideBar welcomes Lawrence Goldstone, historian and award-winning author of “Imperfect Union: How Errors of Omission Threaten Constitutional Democracy.”

SEASIDE, CA, UNITED STATES, August 4, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- SideBar podcast on The Legal Talk Network welcomes Lawrence Goldstone, historian and award-winning author of “Imperfect Union: How Errors of Omission Threaten Constitutional Democracy.” The episode cohosted by law deans Jackie Gardina of The Colleges of Law and Mitch Winick of Monterey College of Law goes live on Tuesday, August 6, 2024. In this episode of SideBar, Goldstone explains why what the Constitution does not say - was intentional - so that democracy can evolve. According to Goldstone, "changing the Supreme Court, protecting voting rights, defining the Second Amendment, and maintaining the balance of power between state and federal government are intended to be the responsibilities of voters, not the government or the courts."

In welcoming Goldstone to SideBar, cohost Jackie Gardina pointed out, “In his fascinating study of the origins of the United States Constitution, award-winning scholar Lawrence Goldstone demonstrates that what was left out of the document by the Framers is of equal importance to what was included.” Cohost Mitch Winick added, “Larry does a great job of explaining why omissions in the Constitution leave our country prone to subjective interpretation by unelected courts and, as a result, vulnerable to anti-democratic initiatives pushed forward by minority rule. He also points out that the intentional omissions by the drafters of the Constitution do not create a prohibition to recent recommendations to legislative changes to the Supreme Court that would limit life tenure or alter the number of justices on the court.”

Goldstone explains that “because of the deep divisions present in the United States at the beginning of the Republic, delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 were unwilling, and often unable, to forge a plan for government that would be both comprehensive and sufficiently acceptable to competing interests to achieve ratification. Rather than risk rejection, they chose to leave many key areas of governance vague or undefined, hoping the flaws could be dealt with after the Constitution had become the “supreme law of the land.” Although successful in the short term, that strategy left the Constitution excessively prone to subjective interpretation and, as a result, the United States was rendered vulnerable to anti-democratic initiatives which plague the nation today.”

Goldstone’s articles, reviews, and opinion pieces have appeared in the Atlantic, Salon, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, Hartford Courant, New Republic, Tablet, and Bloomberg, among others. He is the author of more than two-dozen books including, On Account of Race: The Supreme Court, White Supremacy, and the Ravaging of African American Voting Rights and White Enough: The Long, Shameful Road to Japanese American Internment. He is the winner of the 2021 Lillian Smith Book Award.

To listen to Larry Goldstone’s SideBar episode with law deans Jackie Gardina and Mitch Winick, hear previous episodes, read our blog, learn about future guests, and to contact the co-hosts with ideas, comments, or questions, go to www.sidebarmedia.org.

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