2014] CONSTITUTIONAL DISUSE OR DESUETUDE 1047
Article V as practically impossible to meet.
113
For instance, Bruce Ackerman
views Article V as establishing a “formidable obstacle course.”
114
Sanford
Levinson argues that “Article V, practically speaking, brings us all too close to
the Lockean dream (or nightmare) of changeless stasis,”
115
and that it is “the
Constitutional Amendment, 96 COLUM. L. REV. 121, 144 (1996).
113
See, e.g., Jack M. Balkin, Sanford Levinson’s Second Thoughts About Our
Constitutional Faith, 48
TULSA L. REV. 169, 171 (2012) (stating that the amendment
procedures of Article V pose “almost insurmountable obstacles to constitutional revision”);
Steven G. Calabresi & Livia Fine, Two Cheers for Professor Balkin’s Originalism, 103
NW.
U. L. REV. 663, 682 (2009) (stating that Article V “makes it almost impossible to amend the
Constitution”); Joel I. Colón-Ríos, De-Constitutionalizing Democracy, 47
CAL. W. L. REV.
41, 48-49 n.31 (2010) (stating that the amendment procedure contained in Article V
“establishes requirements that are so difficult to meet . . . that it makes constitutional
amendments almost impossible” (citing S
ANFORD LEVINSON, OUR UNDEMOCRATIC
CONSTITUTION: WHERE THE CONSTITUTION GOES WRONG (AND HOW WE THE PEOPLE CAN
CORRECT IT) 95 (2006))); Joel Colón-Ríos & Allan C. Hutchinson, Democracy and
Revolution: An Enduring Relationship?, 89
DENV. U. L. REV. 593, 602 (2012) (describing
Article V as “one of the most demanding constitutional amendment processes in the
world”); Eric S. Fish, The Twenty-Sixth Amendment Enforcement Power, 121 YALE L.J.
1168, 1234 (2012) (“During the last century, the Article V amendment process has ceased to
be an engine of significant change.”); Sanford Levinson, How I Lost My Constitutional
Faith, 71 MD. L. REV. 956, 969 (2012) (“By making it functionally impossible to amend the
Constitution with regard to anything controversial, Article V stultifies, indeed infantilizes,
our policies both directly and indirectly.”); Sanford Levinson, How the United States
Constitution Contributes to the Democratic Deficit in America, 55
DRAKE L. REV. 859, 874
(2007) (stating that Article V makes amendment “almost impossible by the difficulties
placed in its path”); Sanford Levinson, Still Complacent After All These Years: Some
Rumination on the Continuing Need for a “New Political Science,” 89 B.U. L. REV. 409,
422 (2009) (“Article V makes amendment extraordinarily difficult if not functionally
impossible.”); Landon Wade Magnusson, Article V Versus Article 89: Why the U.S. Does
Not Overturn Supreme Court Rulings Through Amendment, 62
SYRACUSE L. REV. 75, 115
(2012) (referring to the difficulty of the Article V process); John F. Manning, Separation of
Powers as Ordinary Interpretation, 124
HARV. L. REV. 1939, 1975 (2011) (referring to the
academic notion that “the Constitution is very old and almost impossible to amend”); Justin
Pidot, Jurisdictional Procedure,
54 WM. & MARY L. REV. 1, 29 (2012) (“Article V imposes
such high hurdles to constitutional amendment that it places this approach beyond practical
reality.”); Richard A. Primus, When Should Original Meanings Matter?, 107 MICH. L. REV.
165, 211 (2008) (“My own inclination is to regard the possibility of formal constitutional
amendment as generally remote.”); Garrick B. Pursley, Defeasible Federalism, 63
ALA. L.
REV. 801, 865 (2012) (“There is fairly broad consensus today that Article V’s process is too
onerous to provide for sufficient adaptability.”); Ilya Somin & Sanford Levinson,
Democracy, Political Ignorance, and Constitutional Reform, 157
U. PA. L. REV. ONLINE
239, 243-44 (2008), http://www.pennlawreview.com/online/157-U-Pa-L-Rev-PENNumbra-
239.pdf, archived at http://perma.cc/5YSD-LWHC (stating that the requirements of Article
V make it “almost impossible to enact any major amendment”).
114
Bruce Ackerman, The Emergency Constitution, 113 YALE L.J. 1029, 1077 (2004).
115
LEVINSON, supra note 113, at 21.