Far from having gone off the court to an
easy retirement in the Bahamas, U.S. Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens
found a calling in advocating the addition of four words to the U.S.
constitution, here put in italics:
“The laws of the United States . . . shall be the supreme law of the land; and
the judges and other public officials in
every state shall be bound thereby.” While the proposal seems innocent enough,
and even a matter of progress after the fashion of the E.U. Stevens’ rationale
befits the more general shift at the time from federalism to consolidation in
American governance.
