Word: distrusts
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...retains his retiring nature, but he can no longer escape the public eye. He is now universally acknowledged to be one of the nation's top three of four constitutional scholars, having ascended to the top of his field on the strength of his 1980 book, Democracy and Distrust. That work has been widely hailed as the most innovative theory of judicial review since World War II and the most important book about law in 15 years. Notes one Law School instructor, "Nobody takes constitutional law today without learning Ely's name. That wasn't true several years...
Democracy and Distrust did more for Ely than thrust him into the legal limelight. It also prompted Stanford Law School in December to appoint the 42-year-old Ely its next dean. His recent scholastic credentials, in fact, were so overpowering that the vote of Stanford's appointments committee was unanimous--almost unheard of in a field as sharply divided intellectually as constitutional...
...genius of Ely's scheme is that it seems to avoid the age-old tension between democratic theory and judicial activism. And in Democracy and Distrust, Ely buttressed his process-oriented view with a historical analysis of the Constitution so persuasive that Ely could contend that his "representation-reinforcing" theory of judicial review was just what the Founding Fathers had intended...
...been an ardent critic, and almost all of the latter are politically liberal. One of Ely's sharpest critics, law professor Richard Parker, argues that his colleague's focus on process alone--and not fundamental rights--"is grossly middle of the road and insensitive to class distinctions." Democracy and Distrust, Parker has written is just "an apology" for the upper-middle class polity that is America...
...interestingly, Cox has an answer for those who would call Ely's advocacy of judicial self-restraint a cover for conservatism. The former Watergate special prosecutor notes that Ely's idol is Earl Warren--to whom Democracy and Distrust is dedicated and that in lionizing the Warren Court. Ely is "defending the most activist Court we ever...