Constitutional Law: Constitutional Symmetry

Authors

• Zachary S. Price, University of California College of the Law, San FranciscoFollow

Abstract

The United States is closely divided over politics, and these divisions have infected constitutional law. Conservatives, by and large, interpret the Constitution to protect religion, limit gun control, and obstruct federal administrative governance while allowing state-level regulation of moral questions like abortion. Progressives see a mirror-image constitution that advances social justice, confers broad federal power, and allows flexible administrative regulation while limiting state and local police authority and guaranteeing sexual and reproductive autonomy. As national politics have grown divided and polarized, achieving partisan goals through federal legislation has grown more difficult. The two parties have dreamed, in effect, of capturing the courts and implementing their vision through constitutional interpretation instead.

This dynamic is perilous. It treats a document that should be a source of shared commitments and stable ground rules as a vehicle for extending political conflict.

I urge judges to resist this constitutional polarization by favoring, when possible, constitutional understandings that are not politically one-sided but instead operate symmetrically, meaning that they offer valuable protections to interests on opposite sides of key current divides.

Recommended Citation

Price, Zachary S. (2026) "Constitutional Law: Constitutional Symmetry," The Judges' Book: Vol. 10, Article 6.
Available at: https://repository.uclawsf.edu/judgesbook/vol10/iss1/6