W.C. Bunting (Stetson University – College of Law) has posted Fulfilling America’s Unfinished Promise of Individual Liberty: A Second Bill of Rights on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Corporate consolidation and the expansion of the administrative state have created unprecedented concentrations of power that threaten democratic self-governance. This Article argues that the solution lies not in novel constitutional theories but in recovering principles from America’s own constitutional tradition-specifically, the 1641 Massachusetts Body of Liberties, which established the original framework for protecting individual liberties in the colonies. Drawing upon this Puritan constitutional heritage, this Article proposes a Second Bill of Rights consisting of twelve constitutional amendments organized into four categories: (1) basic rights and protections, (2) economic rights, (3) judicial rights and procedures, and (4) public participation rights. Unlike contemporary constitutional proposals, these amendments are rooted in foundational principles tested across centuries of American experience. The bipartisan nature of current concerns about concentrated power, whether corporate or governmental, creates a unique opportunity for such reform. By anchoring new limitations on power in America’s shared constitutional heritage, these amendments offer a path toward restoring some measure of common ground to a deeply fractured society.