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Second Bill of Rights

The Second Bill of Rights or Bill of Economic Rights was proposed by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt during his State of the Union Address on Tuesday, January 11, 1944.[1] In his address, Roosevelt suggested that the nation had come to recognise and should now implement, a second "bill of rights". Roosevelt argued that the "political rights" guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights had "proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness". His remedy was to declare an "economic bill of rights" to guarantee these specific rights:

These rights have come to be known as economic rights; although not to be enshrined within the constitution, the hope of advocating the policy was that it would be 'encoded and guaranteed by federal law'.[2] Roosevelt stated that having such rights would guarantee American security and that the United States' place in the world depended upon how far the rights had been carried into practice. This safety has been described as a state of physical welfare, as well as "economic security, social security, and moral security" by American legal scholar Cass Sunstein.[3] Roosevelt pursued a legislative agenda to enact his second bill of rights by lending Executive Branch personnel to key Senate committees. This tactic, effectively a blending of powers, produced mixed results and generated a backlash from Congress which resulted in passage of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946. This Act provided funding for Congress to establish its own staffing for committees.[4]

Revival[edit]

After Roosevelt's death in 1945, President Harry Truman's administration had, within a few years, compromised the New Deal.[13] FDR's third-term vice president, Henry Wallace, launched a presidential bid in 1948 with a new party. The Progressive Party platform promoted the opposition party's abandoned Economic Bill of Rights.[14]


In July 1960, at the Democratic National Convention, the party nominated John F. Kennedy for president and Lyndon Johnson for vice president. In the platform, it endorsed the Economic Bill of Rights.[15]


Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., a champion of economic justice long before the historic 1963 March on Washington,[16] lobbied for the economic rights bill in a 1968 Look magazine essay, published after his assassination.[17] Key civil rights movement activists A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin in 1966 drafted A “Freedom Budget” for All Americans.[18]


In 2004, legal scholar Cass Sunstein called for a revival of FDR's unfulfilled vision in his book, The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More than Ever.[19][20]


In fall 2009, Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story introduced the Second Bill of Rights to moviegoers and generated national, and even international, press.[21][22][23]


In his 2020 presidential primary campaign, progressive Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders promoted a 21st Century Bill of Rights.[24][25]


In 2022, Prof. Harvey J. Kaye and Alan Minsky of Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) launched a campaign for a modern, expanded 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights.[26][27] At its 2022 convention, the Massachusetts Democratic Party endorsed the PDA proposal.[28][29]


In her 2024 presidential primary campaign, Democratic Party candidate Marianne Williamson featured the 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights in her platform,[30] interviews and speeches.[31][32][33][34]

Bill of Rights

Bill of Rights socialism

, 372 U.S. 353 (1963)

Douglas v. California

Economic democracy

enunciated in Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union Address

Four Freedoms

Full employment

, 397 U.S. 254 (1970)

Goldberg v. Kelly

Progressive Utilization Theory

Public education

Public Service law of the United States

Social Security

Universal health care

Vernon v Bethell

'Property, Production and Revolution' (1965) 65 Columbia Law Review 1

Adolph A. Berle

The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution--And Why We Need It More Than Ever (2004)

Cass R. Sunstein

- YouTube

FDR Second Bill of Rights Speech Footage

Audio recording of the speech on Youtube

FDR's Unfinished "Second Bill of Rights" – and Why We Need it Now