Steven Calabresi of Northwestern Law School joins Jeffrey Rosen to discuss his new book, The Meese Revolution: The Making of a Constitutional Moment. Calabresi reviews former Attorney General Edwin Meese’s instrumental role in the rise of originalism, and credits Meese with transforming the Department of Justice into an “academy in exile” where originalism was developed and put into practice.
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This episode was produced by Samson Mostashari and Bill Pollock. It was engineered by Bill Pollock. Research was provided by Gyuha Lee.
Participants
Steven Calabresi is the Clayton J. and Henry R. Barber Professor of Law at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. He worked in the West Wing of President Ronald Reagan’s White House; was a special assistant for Attorney General Edwin Meese III; and clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, and for Judges Robert H. Bork and Ralph K. Winter on the federal courts of appeals. Calabresi has written over 70 law review articles and essays. He is a co-author on three books: The Meese Revolution: The Making of a Constitutional Moment; The Unitary Executive: Presidential Power from Washington to Bush; The Constitution of the United States (3rd edition); and The U.S. Constitution and Comparative Constitutional Law: Texts, Cases and Materials.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center. Rosen is also a professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic. His most recent book is The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America.
Additional Resources
- Steven Calabresi and Gary Lawson, The Meese Revolution: The Making of a Constitutional Moment (2024)
- Edwin Meese III, Speech to the American Bar Association (7/9/1985)
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