The real world

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is one of the court's "living document" adherents rather than one of the originalist members. In his new book "Making Democracy Work," he calls it "pragmatism."

They constitute a set of pragmatic approaches to interpreting the law. They provide a general perspective of how a pragmatically oriented judge might go about deciding the kinds of cases that make up the work of the Supreme Court. I do not argue that judges should decide all legal cases pragmatically. But I also suggest that by understanding that its actions have real- world consequences and taking those consequences into account, the Court can help make the law work more effectively. It can thereby better achieve the Constitution's basic objective of creating a workable democratic government. In this way the Court can help maintain the public's confidence in the legitimacy of its interpretive role.

I want my legislators to be pragmatic in the sense that they consider the real-world consequences of their acttions. But I like my law and constitutional interpretations in stark black-and-white, right-and-wrong terms. We need to know clearly and precisely what we can and cannot do on a day-to-day basis.