Constitutional rules are also always subject to competing interpretations. What, exactly, does “advice and consent” entail when it comes to the U.S. Senate’s role in appointing Supreme Court justices? What sort of threshold for impeachment does the phrase “crimes and misdemeanors” establish? Americans have debated these and other constitutional questions for centuries. If constitutional powers are open to multiple readings, they can be used in ways that their creators didn’t anticipate.
