Join us for an in-person and virtual* Live Talks Los Angeles event:

Tuesday, May 28, 2024, 8pm

*Virtual event airs on June 3 at 6pm PT/9pm ET

Stephen Breyer,
Former Associate Justice, US Supreme Court

Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism

TICKETS:

• $25 General Admission ticket
• Signed books available for purchase at event
• Face masks recommended

• The virtual version of this event airs on June 3, at 6pm PT/9PM ET and is available on video-on-demand for five days. Tickets for the virtual event can be purchased here (includes the book)
• ASL interpreter provided upon request.
• F ree parking at the venue.

  A provocative, brilliant analysis by recently retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer that deconstructs the textualist philosophy of the current Supreme Court’s supermajority and makes the case for a better way to interpret the Constitution.

  Stephen Breyer is a former associate justice of the Supreme Court who served there for twenty-eight years until retiring in 2022. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

  “A rocket from a Supreme Court justice… Justice Breyer shows how the current Supreme Court’s alleged textualism and originalism are unsound. His book is a judicial arms-control agreement advocating moderation and a path to what he calls ‘workable democracy.’ You will not read a more important legal work this election year.” — Bob Woodward, Washington Post reporter and bestselling author.

  READING THE CONSTITUTION: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism is a provocative analysis by recently retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. In it, he deconstructs the textualist philosophy of the current Supreme Court’s supermajority and makes the case for a better way to interpret the Constitution.

  Textualists claim that the right way to interpret the Constitution and statutes is to read the text carefully and examine the language as it was understood at the time the documents were written.

  Justice Breyer recalls Chief Justice John Marshall’s exhortation that the Constitution must be a workable set of principles to be interpreted by subsequent generations. Most important in interpreting law, says Breyer, is to understand the purposes of statutes as well as the consequences of deciding a case one way or another. He illustrates these principles by examining some of the most important cases in the nation’s history.