The Constitutionality Index

[pmbug]

BREAKING: The Constitutionality Index has now scored every law in the history of the United States. 48,000 laws dating back to 1789.

So far as I'm aware, I'm the first one to ever attempt such a thing.

And we've now ranked every president based on the percentage of laws they enacted were constitutional. The results largely track the overall historical trend: As we move from the founding to the modern era, the percentage of unconstitutional legislation increases.

In fact, 1937 is the tipping point. Pre-FDR's New Deal, every president — Federalist, Whig, Republican, Democrat — scores 98 to 100%. After the New Deal, the average percentage of constitutional laws (by page) drops to 31 percent.

As a result, presidents of the last few decades find themselves at the bottom of the rankings. @JoeBiden is officially the least constitutional president, although Trump isn't far behind. Only Thomas Jefferson scored a perfect 100 percent.

I've also scored congresses, & @SpeakerJohnson's current Congress is, from the perspective of the Constitution, the worst Congress in American history. Constitutional legislation stands at 56.3 by total count, & just 4.3% by total legislative pages.

Another important finding: The largest laws in American history are, every one of them, unconstitutional.

I have not dug into it, but am fairly confident it will not be scoring history the way I would. However, it serves a good purpose in getting conversations going on the topic.

 

[Joe King]

Technically speaking, anything after, and including FDR, is 100% unConstitional.

1933 is when the gov went extra-Constitutional. Ie: rogue.

Edited to add:...and then passed a law that said was all ok. It amounted to amending the Constitution with a simple majority vote in congress.

 

[Joe King]

I was surprised that Chester A. Arthur only ranked at #20. He was a good one.