1、CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress Legal SidebarLegal Sidebari i The Modes of Constitutional Analysis: Original Meaning (Part 3) December 29, 2021 This Legal Sidebar Post is the third in a nine-part series that discusses certain “methods” or “modes” of analysis that th
2、e Supreme Court has employed to determine the meaning of a provision within the Constitution. (For additional background on this topic and citations to relevant sources, please see CRS Report R45129, Modes of Constitutional Interpretation) Whereas textualist approaches to constitutional interpretati
3、on focus solely on a documents text, originalist approaches consider the Constitutions meaning as understood by at least some segment of the populace at the time of the Founding. Though this method has generally been called “originalism,” constitutional scholars have not reached a consensus on what
4、it means for a judge to adopt this methodology for construing the Constitutions text. Disagreements primarily concern which sources scholars should consult when determining the Constitutions “fixed meaning.” Originalists, however, generally agree that the Constitutions text had an “objectively ident
