How the rise of judicial originalism has shaped our economy
Make Me Smart
Marketplace
4.6 • 5.5K Ratings
🗓️ 12 June 2024
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s decision season for the U.S. Supreme Court, meaning the court is weighing in on a slew of cases dealing with a wide range of issues, including abortion medication restrictions and the power of federal agencies. One legal doctrine has become more and more influential in that decision-making: originalism. But Madiba Dennie, author of the new book “The Originalism Trap: How Extremists Stole the Constitution and How We the People Can Take It Back,” calls that a relatively recent phenomenon. On the show today, Dennie explains what originalism is, how it gained a foothold in American legal thought and why she believes its rise has eroded Americans’ rights and threatened economic stability. Plus, her idea for how we move forward.
Then, we’ll get into the movie-worthy story of an African American man who escaped slavery and became a fierce critic of the Constitution. Plus, Patrick Schumacker, an executive producer of the TV series “Abbott Elementary,” answers the Make Me Smart question.
Here’s everything we talked about today:
- “Throw Originalism Out. It’s Time for Inclusive Constitutionalism.” from Slate
- “Originalism, Amy Coney Barrett’s approach to the Constitution, explained” from Vox
- “Even the Founders Didn’t Believe in Originalism” from The Atlantic
- “What is originalism? Did it underpin the Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion and guns? Debunking the myths” from The Conversation
- “The biggest 2024 Supreme Court rulings so far, and what’s still to come” from The Washington Post
- “A Furious, Forgotten Slave Narrative Resurfaces After Nearly 170 Years” from The New York Times
- “Facebook owner Meta seeks to train AI model on European data as it faces privacy concerns” from AP News
-
What have you been wrong about lately? Let us know at makemesmart@marketplace.org or leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Okay, let me stop myself before I embarrass myself further. Let's do the show. |
| 0:05.0 | Hello everyone, I'm Kimberly Adams. |
| 0:11.0 | Welcome back to Make Me Smart |
| 0:14.5 | where none of us is as smart as all of us. |
| 0:17.0 | And I'm Sabrie Beneschior in for Ky Rizdahl. Today is Tuesday June 11th. |
| 0:22.1 | It's decision season for the US Supreme Court, which means they are issuing |
| 0:26.4 | rulings on a whole slew of major cases that deal with issues ranging from abortion medication |
| 0:31.6 | restrictions to the power of federal agencies. |
| 0:34.6 | Or the lack thereof. And over time, one legal doctrine has guided more and more of the court's decision-making, and this is a concept called |
| 0:44.8 | originalism. Legal scholar, Madiva Denny, has a new book out about this called The Originalism Trap, |
| 0:52.4 | how extremists stole the Constitution and how we the people can take it back. |
| 0:58.2 | She's here to make a smarter about the rise of originalism and why she thinks we should move beyond it. |
| 1:04.3 | Welcome to the show, Madiba. |
| 1:06.3 | Hello, thanks so much for having me. |
| 1:09.1 | So first of all, can you give us a non-law school explanation of what originalism is? Of course. |
| 1:18.0 | Originalism is the idea that the Constitution's meaning now has to be the same as it was when it was originally |
| 1:26.7 | ratified. |
| 1:28.4 | So whatever the original public understanding |
| 1:37.0 | today. |
| 1:40.0 | I mean, how did that meaning is still authoritative for our understanding today? I mean, how did that go from being a fringe legal theory to guiding the decision |
| 1:47.7 | making of several members current members and passed of the Supreme Court? |
| 1:51.2 | It used to be very commonplace generally understood that history could be a factor in assessing the Constitution's meaning, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Marketplace, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Marketplace and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.