Book Review/Heathre Seggel

Three is a Magic Number

After the election of 2016, did you read or revisit any of this nation’s founding documents? Did you intend to brush up on the basics but maybe not get around to it? (I am guiltily in the latter group, as my e-reader likes to point out each time I fire it up. It’s so easy to download the “Federalist Papers,” but so hard to make time to read them!) If you even thought about it, that impulse was not misplaced—we can learn a lot about what’s currently wrong with our nation and how to potentially fix it from our origins, the Constitution in particular. Law professor and CBS legal analyst Kimberly Wehle has written a book that may help kick-start your interest. “How to Read the Constitution — and Why” (HarperCollins) is a straightforward guide to our government’s design, and a call to protect and restore it.

In a recent NPR feature about the book, Wehle acknowledges she was originally under contract to write an academic book on the topic, but once she started writing, found herself addressing a lay audience. The subject matter is dense, but she does work to clarify it. To that end, the book is divided into three sections, simply labeled “Structure,” “Rights” and “Why Care?” If our government can be compared to a three-legged stool, it’s a metaphor reinforced by the book’s design; each section shores up the others, leading to a rather dire and uncertain conclusion.

People often think of individual rights when they think of the Constitution, and there are meaty discussions of several Amendments to the Bill of Rights here, none of which draw easy conclusions (we’re reminded often that the law is “squishy” much of the time, meaning whoever has the most influence, a thing usually measured in dollars, is most likely to get their way). But Wehle is concerned that while people like to debate gun rights or what constitutes free speech, they ignore the Constitution’s explanation of our government structure. The book is peppered with gentle reminders that letting too much power accrue to any one of the three branches of government, to say nothing of a single political party or person, is a recipe for disaster. Sound familiar? It should.

In the discussion of Fourth Amendment rights, there’s a lengthy quote from a CNN piece about how much information Google and Facebook have about us, and how they can use and distribute it. It was chilling to read, and not just because I’m typing this on a Chromebook using Google Docs. The quote dates back to 2012, and Wehle is quick to remind us that all that information falls outside Fourth Amendment protections, because we have willingly shared it with a third party, via email, social media posts, uploaded photos or other means. The cloud is listening! In many ways society has been reshaped so there’s little choice left to us in these matters—it’s possible to stay off the grid, but extremely difficult, and many people have invited this casual surveillance directly into their homes via Alexa and other “smart” devices.

“How to Read the Constitution” is full of smart analysis and discussion and Wehle isn’t afraid to be opinionated on the page. The legal discussions can be challenging even for lay readers at times. But I was reminded of “Schoolhouse Rock” videos more than once while reading, because the same thrill of understanding and discovery bubbled up when, say, a discussion that at first seemed abstract was tied to the Emoluments Clause, clarifying the corrupt nature of the president’s self-dealing to his own businesses. Chapters begin with a relevant passage of the Constitution highlighted for emphasis, and there’s a full copy at the end that, upon finishing the book, feels considerably less daunting to tackle.

It’s scary and depressing that the book’s third section asks Why Care? (It’s that old problem with consolidation of power — US presidents of both parties keep expanding their powers, only to have them expanded further by their successors. The Supreme Court is currently a highly political body thanks largely to Republican obstruction. And Congress, well, ugh.) Wehle points out a few ways we, the people might be the last remaining check on Republicans who have pledged their loyalty to a corrupt president, and vital among them is voting. It will take big numbers to flip districts that are so gerrymandered as to completely subvert true representation of their population, but it can be done. “How to Read the Constitution—and Why” offers a bracing refresher on how adrift we are and what a citizen-driven course correction might look like.

Heather Seggel is a writer living in Northern California. Email heatherlseggel@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, October 1, 2019

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