1、CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress Legal SidebarLegal Sidebari i The Modes of Constitutional Analysis: Structuralism (Part 7) January 13, 2022 This Legal Sidebar Post is the seventh in a nine-part series that discusses certain “methods” or “modes” of analysis that the
2、Supreme Court has employed to determine the meaning of a provision within the Constitution. (For additional background on this topic and citations to relevant sources, please see CRS Report R45129, Modes of Constitutional Interpretation.) One of the most common modes of constitutional interpretation
3、 is based on the Constitutions structure. Drawing inferences from the Constitutions design gives rise to some of the most important relationships the Constitution establishesthe relationships among the three branches of the federal government (commonly called separation of powers or checks and balan
4、ces); the relationship between the federal and state governments (known as federalism); and the relationship between the government and the people. Two basic approaches seek to make sense of these relationships. The first, known as formalism, posits that the Constitution sets forth all the ways in w