An article from last October's "Keeping Faith with the Constitution in Changing Times" symposium, co-sponsored by Constitutional Interpretation and Change Issue Group and Vanderbilt University Law School. The symposium was held at Vanderbilt University Law School in October 2006.

In Constitutional Fidelity and Democratic Legitimacy, Robin West, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, advocates for the legislative branch to take a more active role in constitutional interpretation. Professor West contends, “The way to express fidelity toward a constitutional vision that insists only on equality, equal compassion, and self-governance, is through the profoundly respectful, and deeply ennobling, but utterly ordinary practice of politics, and not through adjudicative process. One way to express fidelity with a text that directs us to give equal protection of the law to all, and to respect the privileges and immunities of all co-citizens, and otherwise, to self-govern, might be to constantly ask, and re-ask ourselves . . . as we go about this work of self-governance: What would an ideally conscientious, morally responsible legislator--not judge--do?”