Codifying Constitutional Norms

ARTICLES

Codifying Constitutional Norms

JONATHAN S. GOULD*

Ours is an era of fraying constitutional norms. Norms that long gov-

erned the conduct of public off‌icials have in recent years been violated

by the White House, in Congress, and in the states. In the face of threats

to constitutional norms, some have proposed codifying constitutional

norms—that is, enacting their content into law.

This Article examines the dynamics around codifying constitutional

norms. It begins by showing that codif‌ication efforts face both practical

and legal barriers. Practically, it can be diff‌icult to def‌ine the precise

contours of a constitutional norm and to codify a norm in a polarized po-

litical environment. Legally, constitutional law precludes Congress from

codifying many of the most important constitutional norms.

The Article then shows that codifying constitutional norms can have

signif‌icant potential benef‌its, but that codif‌ication is not without costs.

Codif‌ication holds the promise of promoting greater compliance with

norms, typically by making them legally enforceable, but codif‌ication can

have unintended consequences and in some cases may actually weaken

norms. Codif‌ication can clarify and stabilize norms that might otherwise

be vague or unstable, but codif‌ication also risks ossifying norms by deny-

ing them the ability to evolve. And codifying a norm can shift power

among institutional actors, including by giving courts a role where they

previously had none.

Finally, the Article contends that understanding the benef‌its and costs of

codif‌ication provides insight into when and how codif‌ication is appropriate.

The desirability of codif‌ication will depend on the institution doing the

codifying and the legal vehicle being used for codif‌ication. Codif‌ication

will be more appropriate for rule-like norms than for standard-like norms.

Codif‌ication through soft law or rules internal to a branch of government

may sometimes be superior to codif‌ication via a judicially enforceable stat-

ute. And norms can be protected indirectly, rather than through directly

* Assistant Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley. © 2021, Jonathan S. Gould. For

helpful comments and conversations, I am grateful to Ashraf Ahmed, Eric Beerbohm, Josh Chafetz,

Erwin Chemerinsky, Meir Dan-Cohen, Christopher Edley, Gregory Elinson, Richard Fallon, Daniel

Farber, Sean Farhang, Catherine Fisk, Tom Ginsburg, Rebecca Goldstein, David Grewal, Vicki Jackson,

Christopher Kutz, Katerina Linos, Burt Neuborne, David Pozen, Daphna Renan, Frederick Schauer,

Oren Tamir, Richard Tuck, and workshop participants at Berkeley Law School and the Ash Center for

Democratic Governance. Thanks to Perry Abdulkadir, Derek Ha, Molly Lao, Oliver Rosenbloom, and

Daniel Twomey for excellent research and editorial assistance.

703

codifying their content. Even when codifying norms is possible and advisa-

ble, however, codif‌ication cannot serve as a substitute for better politics.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 705

I. PRELIMINARIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 711

A. CONSTITUTIONAL NORMS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 711

B. THE UBIQUITY OF CONSTITUTIONAL NORMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 715

C. CODIFYING CONSTITUTIONAL NORMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 718

II. PRACTICAL AND POLITICAL CONSTRAINTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 723

A. IDENTIFYING AND AGREEING UPON NORMS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 723

B. CAPTURING POLICYMAKERS’ ATTENTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 726

C. PARTISANS, VETOGATES, AND NORMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 726

D. OPPORTUNITIES FOR CODIFICATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 729

III. CONSTITUTIONAL CONSTRAINTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 730

A. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW AND CONSTITUTIONAL NORMS . . . . . . . . . . . . 730

B. HOW CONSTITUTIONAL DOCTRINE CONSTRAINS CODIFICATION . . . . . 732

IV. CODIFICATION TRADE-OFFS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 735

A. COMPLIANCE ............................................ 736

1. Promoting Compliance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 736

2. Unintended Consequences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 738

B. SETTLEMENT AND FLEXIBILITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 740

1. Stability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 740

2. Ossif‌ication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 742

C. DECISIONMAKING AUTHORITY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 744

V. MEANS OF CODIFICATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 746

A. VEHICLES OF CODIFICATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 746

1. Constitutional Amendments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 746

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2. Statutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 747

3. Soft Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 749

4. Intrabranch Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 751

B. CODIFICATION OF RULES AND STANDARDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 753

1. Compliance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 755

2. Settlement and Flexibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 756

3. Decisionmaking Authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 756

C. INDIRECTLY PROTECTING NORMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 759

CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 764

INTRODUCTION

Ours is an era of fraying constitutional norms. In Congress, norms that

held for most of the twentieth century have eroded in recent decades.

1

For

four years, the Trump Administration regularly made front-page news

for violating norms.

2

Norms have also frayed in state and local govern-

ments.

3

For many, shoring up threatened norms is closely tied to shoring

up democracy itself. Constitutional norms can, on this view, serve “as the

soft guardrails of American democracy, helping it avoid the kind of parti-

san f‌ight to the death that has destroyed democracies elsewhere in the

world.”

4

Following earlier work, I take constitutional norms to refer to the nonlegal

principles that govern the conduct of public off‌icials, the structure and function of

government, and the operation of campaigns and elections.

5

Contemporary U.S.

1. See, e.g., THOMAS E. MANN & NORMAN J. ORNSTEIN, IT’S EVEN WORSE THAN IT LOOKS: HOW THE

AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM COLLIDED WITH THE NEW POLITICS OF EXTREMISM 50 (rev. ed.

2016) (describing how Congress’s “rules, practices, and norms” have been “sacrif‌iced for political

expediency”).

2. For examples, see BOB BAUER & JACK GOLDSMITH, AFTER TRUMP: RECONSTRUCTING THE

PRESIDENCY 2–4, 21–22, 95–101, 147–53 (2020); Josh Chafetz & David E. Pozen, How

Constitutional Norms Break Down, 65 UCLA L. REV. 1430, 1432, 1451–52 (2018); and Neil S.

Siegel, Political Norms, Constitutional Conventions, and President Donald Trump, 93 IND. L.J.

177, 190–203 (2018).

3. See, e.g., Miriam Seifter, Judging Power Plays in the American States, 97 TEX. L. REV. 1217,

1221–31 (2019) (collecting examples).

4. STEVEN LEVITSKY & DANIEL ZIBLATT, HOW DEMOCRACIES DIE 9 (2018); see also TOM GINSBURG

& AZIZ Z. HUQ, HOW TO SAVE A CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY 207 (2018) (noting that “unwritten

political norms or constitutional conventions” safeguard “against democratic erosion”).

5. See infra Section I.A.

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