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This book brings together twenty-plus contributors from the fields of law, economics, and international relations to look at whether the U.S. legal system is contributing to the country's long postwar decline. The book provides a comprehensive overview of the interactions between economics and the law in such areas as corruption, business regulation, and federalism. It explains how the U.S. legal system works differently to those in most countries, with contradictory and hard-to-understand business regulations, tort laws that vary from state to state, and surprising judicial interpretations of clearly written contracts. This imposes far heavier litigation costs on American companies and hampers economic growth.

Despite the centrality of separation of church and state in American government, religion has played an important role in the nation's politics from colonial times through the present day. This essential anthology provides a fascinating history of religion in American politics and public life through a wide range of primary documents. It explores contentious debates over freedom, tolerance, and justice, in matters ranging from slavery to the nineteenth-century controversy over Mormon polygamy to the recent discussions concerning same-sex marriage and terrorism. Bringing together a diverse range of voices from Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and secular traditions and the words of historic personages, from Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Frances Willard to John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., this collection is an invaluable introduction to one of the most important conversations in America's history.

A key figure in the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, Benjamin V. Cohen (1894–1983) was a major architect of public policy from the first days of FDR's presidency through the early days of the Cold War. Although he kept a low public profile, Cohen's influence extended across a wide range of domestic and foreign policy initiatives. This biography offers an account of Ben Cohen's life and career, and an assessment of his contribution to the origin and development of modern American liberalism. Cohen's life provides an extraordinary lens through which to view the development of the evolving political philosophy of the Roosevelt and Truman presidencies. A brilliant lawyer noted for his good judgment and experience, Cohen was a leading member of FDR's “Brain Trust,” developing ideas, drafting legislation, lobbying within the administration and in Congress, and defending the New Deal in court. The book traces his contributions to domestic financial policy, his activities during the war years in London and Washington, his service as counselor to the State Department and member of the American delegation to the United Nations after the war, and his role in the American Zionist movement. From Cohen's life and work, the book draws important insights into the development of the New Deal and the evolution of postwar liberalism.

It was believed that the Supreme Court's intervention in the 2000 election would shape American law and democracy long after George W. Bush has left the White House. This book brings together a broad range of preeminent legal scholars who address the larger questions raised by the Supreme Court's actions. Did the Court's decision violate the rule of law? Did it inaugurate an era of super-politicized jurisprudence? How should Bush v. Gore change the terms of debate over the next round of Supreme Court appointments?

How are congressional party leaders chosen? In the first comprehensive study since Robert Peabody's classic Leadership in Congress, this book draws on newly collected data about U.S. House members who have sought leadership positions from the 1960s to the present—data including whip tallies, public and private vote commitments, interviews, and media accounts—to provide new insights into how the selection process truly works. Elections for congressional party leaders are conventionally seen as a function of either legislators' ideological preferences or factors too idiosyncratic to permit systematic analysis. Analyzing six decades' worth of information, the book finds evidence for a new comprehensive model of vote choice in House leadership elections that incorporates both legislators' goals and their connections with leadership candidates.

This accessible overview of the US Congress's past and present, introduces students to the country's most democratic institution. The book surveys Congressional elections, the internal structure of Congress, the legislative process, Congress and the president, and Congress and the courts. It offers a fresh approach to the First Branch grounded in a historical, positive frame. The book argues that many of the characteristics of Congress with which Americans are so impatient stem directly from the institution's democratic nature. It is slow to act, cumbersome in its procedures, and contentious in its discussions precisely because it is a democratic decision-making body. But complaints are also that it is seen as polarized and corrupt, serving lobbyists, special interests, and campaign contributors rather than the American people. The book concludes by considering whether these charges amount to a serious indictment of Congress, its members, and its procedures.

The United States is home to the world’s oldest national constitution. Stability defines the document. Americans have never convened to replace the Constitution and rarely amended or fundamentally reinterpreted the document. What explains the American Constitution’s longevity? This book proposes that state constitutional revision resolves national constitutional controversies. With lower barriers to amendment and replacement, the American state constitutions invite reform, addressing national constitutional controversies. This state constitutional reform discourages national constitutional revision and quiets conflict between the branches of the national government, guiding American political development. The book elaborates this claim using original datasets of all 12,000 proposed federal constitutional amendments and all 411 state constitutional revision bodies from 1776-2020. Using detailed, chronological case studies from the Revolution to the present, the book shows that state constitutionalism guides national politics. This frequent, popular revision grants the state constitutions a democratic legitimacy that the national Constitution lacks.

What kind of job has America's routinely disparaged legislative body actually done? This book provides an insightful historical analysis of the U.S. Congress's performance from the late eighteenth century to today, exploring what its lasting imprint has been on American politics and society. The book offers a unique perspective on the evaluation of the American constitutional system. It suggests that Congress has balanced the presidency in a surprising variety of ways, and in doing so, it has contributed to the legitimacy of a governing system faced by an often fractious public. The book will be of interest for anyone interested in American political and policy history.

Introductory textbooks on American government tell us that the Supreme Court is independent from the elected branches and that independent courts better protect rights than their more deferential counterparts. But are these facts or myths? This book reports evidence showing that the Supreme Court is in fact extraordinarily deferential to Congressional preferences in its constitutional rulings. Analyzing cross-national evidence, the book also finds that the rights protections enjoyed in the United States appear to be largely due to the fact that there is not an independent Supreme Court. In fact, there would likely be even greater protections for political and economic rights were the federal courts to be prohibited from exercising judicial review altogether. This book's findings suggest that constitutional designers would be wise to heed Thomas Jefferson's advice to “let mercy be the character of the law-giver, but let the judge be a mere machine.”

Using emergency as a cause for action ultimately leads to an almost unnoticed evolution in the political understanding of presidential powers. The Constitution of the United States, however, was designed to function under “states of exception,” most notably through the separation of powers, and provides ample internal checks on emergency actions taken under claims of necessity. This book urges the United States Congress, the courts, and other bodies to put those checks into practice. The book analyzes the constitutional norms that fail to guide and constrain the choice of action through an analysis of what is appropriate. It explores how constitutional norms always apply as unavoidably normative constitutional questions during an emergency. It explains how necessity can produce dictatorship, because the people are willing to allow whatever it takes to solve their immediate needs, and it looks into the theory that a president might suspend the constitutional order in order to post hoc political accountability. It then talks about necessity that enables presidential discretion, and responds to arguments regarding the president having all the power that necessity confers. The book considers the scope of implied presidential power, arguing that even if there is power to do what is necessary, it is still constrained by conceptions of what is proper. It emphasizes how deference to the president is inconsistent with a constitutional tradition that preciously guards decisions about liberty. The book concludes with a review of the commitment to constitutional values as a constitutive feature of political identity in American constitutionalism.

Between 1960 and 1980 various administrations attempted to deal with a rising tide of illicit drug use that was unprecedented in U.S. history. This book provides a close look at the politics and bureaucracy of drug control policy during those years, showing how they changed during the presidencies of Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter and how much current federal drug-control policies owe to those earlier efforts. The book bases its analysis on a unique collection of 5,000 pages of White House documents from the period. These documents reveal the intense debates that took place over drug policy. They show, for example, that staffers and cabinet officers who were charged with narcotics policy were often influenced by the cultural currents of their times, and when the public reacted in an extreme fashion to rising drug use, officials were disinclined to adopt modified policies that might have been more realistic. This investigation into the decision-making processes that shaped past drug control efforts in the United States provides essential background as creative approaches to the drug problem are sought for the future.

Must a state in which gay marriage is not legal recognize such a marriage performed in another state? The Constitution does not require recognition in all cases, but it does forbid states from nullifying family relationships based in other states, or from making themselves havens for people who are trying to escape obligations to their spouses and children. This book offers workable legal solutions to the problems that arise when gay couples cross state borders. Drawing on historical precedents in which states held radically different moral views about marriage (for example, between kin, very young individuals, and interracial couples), the author shows which state laws should govern in specific situations as gay couples travel or move from place to place. Americans are profoundly divided over same-sex marriage, and now that gay civil unions and marriages are legal in some states, the issue has become increasingly urgent.

Why the United States has failed to establish a comprehensive high-quality child care program is the question at the center of this book. The book presents a firsthand history of the policy making and politics surrounding this important debate. Good-quality child care supports cognitive, social, and emotional development, school readiness, and academic achievement. This book examines the history of child care policy since 1969, including the inside story of America's one great attempt to create a comprehensive system of child care, its failure, and the lack of subsequent progress. Identifying specific issues that persist today, the book concludes with an agenda designed to lead us successfully toward quality care for America's children.

This book disputes the conventional belief that the minority party in the US House of Representatives is an unimportant political player. Examining the record of the House minority party from 1970 to the present, and drawing from a wide range of quantitative and qualitative data, the text shows how and why the minority seeks to influence legislative and political outcomes and demonstrates that the party's efforts can succeed. The result is an appreciation of what the House minority can do and why it does it, providing new insights into the workings of this famously contentious legislative chamber.

This is the third edition of the definitive book on the unique system by which Americans choose a presidents, and why that system should be changed. It is a critique of the U.S. electoral college and includes a new chapter focusing on the 2016 election. The book examines the function of the electoral college during the 2016 presidential elections and argues that the electoral college did not work as it should have. The book claims that the electoral college distorted the electoral process and gave the candidates strong incentives to ignore most of the country. It did not guarantee victory to the candidate receiving the most votes, nor ensure national harmony, nor provide the winner a broad coalition and a mandate to govern. The book asserts that there is a need to focus directly and systematically on the core questions surrounding the electoral college and assess whether its role in American democracy is justified.