Document Type
Article
Abstract
This review highlights the scope and importance of Richard Fallon’s book, The Changing Constitution: Constitutional Law in the Trump-Era Supreme Court. Fallon, a giant of constitutional work, provides a comprehensive, accessible, and vitally important catalogue of the Court’s methodological changes in his posthumously published book. The book argues that while textualism and originalism “have achieved unparalleled prominence,” the Court is also “not consistently originalist” and often relies on a version of traditionalism, similar to but importantly distinct from originalism, that marks an important and undertheorized change. And in yet other areas, the Court eschews either originalism or traditionalism for a kind of pragmatic structural argument that seems largely policy driven. The book includes a synopsis of the Court’s own history and tradition, including shifts to liberal and conservative orthodoxy in both doctrine and interpretive method. That synopsis is invaluable at a time when many Justices pledge fealty to the nation’s history in many doctrinal areas. As Fallon’s book explains, such traditionalism is itself an important break from the traditional analytical methods of the Supreme Court.
Recommended Citation
Michael Gentithes, Book Review: We're All Traditionalists Now (Most of the Time) Richard H. Fallon, Jr., The Changing Constitution: Constitutional Law in the Trump-Era Supreme Court, 17 ConLawNOW 179 (2026)