The Meese Revolution

The Meese Revolutionexplores how Ed Meese became the most powerful and important Attorney General in American history.

Edwin Meese III is the most influential person ever to hold the office of U.S. Attorney General and almost no one knows it.Ed Meese was at the center of virtually every major accomplishment of Ronald Reagan's transformative presidency, from winning the Cold War without firing a shot to the economic boom that by the end of the 1980s was the envy of the world.More to the point for this book, Ed Meese is the person most responsible for the rise of constitutional originalism, which treats the text and original meaning of the Constitution rather than the policy fads of the moment as authoritative law.

In 2024, originalism is a major force in the courts, with a majority of Supreme Court justices and a raft of lower-court and state-court judges at least taking it seriously as a major contributor to decision-making.That result was unthinkable in 1985 when Meese took office and originalism was essentially unknown to the legal academy and almost wholly absent from the judicial process.Ed Meese turned the U.S. Department of Justice into "the academy in exile," where originalism was developed, refined, theorized, and put into practice.

This book describes the rise of originalism, which necessitates telling the story of Ed Meese, without whom it surely does not happen.Meese's story threads through virtually all important legal and policy events of the 1980s, many of which continue to shape the world of the twenty-first century.We are still living through the Meese Revolution.

"This book is a warm and grateful tribute to Ed Meese, the “most influential and powerful attorney-general in American history.” Not only was Meese primarily responsible for the creation of “originalism,” the now dominant method of constitutional interpretation in our national jurisprudence, but he was also President Reagan’s de facto counsellor during his administration and a major hidden hand in the developments of subsequent Republican presidencies. The authors reveal what Meese’s extraordinary modesty has kept obscured for all these years. A marvelous achievement!"

—Gordon S. Wood, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Radicalism of the American Revolution

"The Meese Revolution is more than just a biography of an influential figure. It is required reading for anyone from any political persuasion who wants to understand the recent history of the Supreme Court. Told by two insiders, the book explains how a once little-known idea championed by Reagan’s attorney general ended up shaping the law of the land. This is the untold and crucial story of how originalism, the now dominant approach to constitutional interpretation, entered the mainstream."

"The most important Attorney General in American history? Read this tour de force and decide for yourself!"

—Akhil Reed Amar, Sterling Professor of Law, Yale University

"In this absorbing biography of a great American citizen and statesman, Steven Calabresi and Gary Lawson have given us a panoramic view of the politics, people, and ideas that transformed American constitutional law in the lat 20th century. The Meese Revolution is a fascinating read!"

—Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand Professor of Law Emerita, Harvard University

Steven Gow Calabresi is the Clayton J. & Henry R. Barber Professor at Northwestern Pritzker School of law. He has also co-taught in the Fall semester at Yale Law School from 2013 to the present. Calabresi clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia and Judges Robert H. Bork and Ralph K. Winter. He was a special assistant to Attorney General Reese from 1985 to 1987 and worked with Ken Cribb as his deputy in 1987 on the second floor of the West Wing of the Reagan White House. Calabresi has written books on presidential power and comparative constitutional law and the origins of judicial review. He and Gary Lawson are the co-editors of a casebook on U.S. constitutional law, and Calabresi is also the co-editor of a casebook on comparative constitutional law. He has written over seventy law review articles since 1990.

Gary Lawson joined the University of Florida Levin College of Law faculty on July 1, 2024 after twenty-four years at Boston University School of Law and eleven years at Northwestern University School of Law. He has authored or co-authored nine editions of a textbook on administrative law, a textbook on constitutional law, five university press books, and more than one hundred scholarly articles on topics ranging from aspects of constitutional theory and history to the proof of legal propositions. His works have been cited in more than twenty opinions of United States Supreme Court justices. He is on the editorial advisory board of the Heritage Guide to the Constitution.

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