In this Introductory chapter to “Amending America’s Unwritten Constitution,” the editors invite readers to consider the puzzle presented in the book: How to amend America’s unwritten constitution? The editors undertake a systemic inquiry into each of the major themes raised by the puzzle: What is a “constitution,” what is “America’s” constitution, what does it mean to “amend” a constitution, and how might we identify an amendment to an “unwritten” constitution, specifically the unwritten constitution of the United States. As the editors set out to answer these questions, they survey the existing literature in the field to lay the foundation for the chapters to follow. They introduce the chapters as well as how each of them illuminates the answer to the major thematic questions raised and explored in the book. What results is ultimately both a proper introduction to this book and also an important scholarly resource to understand constitutional change in the United States.

The central claim of this chapter is that racial politics, stemming from the racial realignment between the Democratic and Republican Parties that began much earlier than many scholars appreciate, has played a critically important and yet undernoticed role in the breakdown of constitutional norms in recent decades. An increasing number of American legal scholars are writing about the importance of constitutional norms, also sometimes called constitutional conventions. Such norms are not legal in status, but they impose obligations of compliance on government officials that can be as great as legal obligations – they guide and constrain how officials “exercise political discretion.” Although constitutional norms are not required by the letter of the US Constitution, they are appropriately denominated “constitutional” because they help vindicate the spirit – or the purposes – of the Constitution. To violate a constitutional norm without sufficient public-regarding justification is not unconstitutional, but it “is anticonstitutional.” Constitutional norms were placed under great pressure during the presidency of Donald J. Trump.