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Democracy by Decree: What Happens When Courts Run Government (2003)
Ross Sandler and David Schoenbrod
Schools, welfare agencies, and a wide variety of other state and local institutions of vital importance to citizens are controlled by attorneys and judges rather than governors and mayors. In this book, Ross Sandler and David Schoenbrod explain how this has come to pass, why it has resulted in service to the public that is worse, not better, and what can be done to restore control of these programs to democratically elected - and accountable - officials.
Sandler and Schoenbrod tell how the courts, with the best intentions and often with the approval of elected officials, came to control ordinary policy making through court decrees. These court regimes, they assert, impose rigid and often ancient detailed plans that can founder on reality. Newly elected officials, who may wish to alter the plans in response to the changing wishes of voters, cannot do so unless attorneys, court-appointed functionaries, and lower-echelon officials agree. The result is neither judicial government nor good government, say Sandler and Schoenbrod, and they offer practical reforms that would set governments free from this judicial stranglehold, allow courts to do their legitimate job of protecting rights, and strengthen democracy.
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The Complete Retirement Survival Guide : Everything You Need to Know to Safeguard Your Money, Your Health, and Your Independence
Peter J. Strauss and Nancy M. Lederman
Table of Contents only
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The Essentials of NY Mental Health Law: A Straightforward Guide for Clinicians of All Disciplines
Stephen H. Behnke, J.D., PH.D; Michael L. Perlin, J.D.; and Marvin Bernstein, J.D.
Table of Contents only
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Thomas Jefferson
Richard B. Bernstein
Thomas Jefferson designed his own tombstone, describing himself simply as "Author of the Declaration of Independence and of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia." It is in this simple epitaph that R.B. Bernstein finds the key to this enigmatic Founder--not as a great political figure, but as leader of "a revolution of ideas that would make the world over again."
In Thomas Jefferson, Bernstein offers the definitive short biography of this revered American--the first concise life in six decades. Bernstein deftly synthesizes the massive scholarship on his subject into a swift, insightful, evenhanded account. Here are all of Jefferson's triumphs, contradictions, and failings, from his luxurious (and debt-burdened) life as a Virginia gentleman to his passionate belief in democracy, from his tortured defense of slavery to his relationship with Sally Hemings. Jefferson was indeed multifaceted--an architect, inventor, writer, diplomat, propagandist, planter, party leader--and Bernstein explores all these roles even as he illuminates Jefferson's central place in the American enlightenment, that "revolution of ideas" that did so much to create the nation we know today. Together with the less well-remembered points in Jefferson's thinking--the nature of the Union, his vision of who was entitled to citizenship, his dread of debt (both personal and national)--they form the heart of this lively biography.
In this marvel of compression and comprehension, we see Jefferson more clearly than in the massive studies of earlier generations. More important, we see, in Jefferson's visionary ideas, the birth of the nation's grand sense of purpose. -
What Kind of Nation Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create a United States (2003)
James F. Simon
The bitter and protracted struggle between President Thomas Jefferson and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall defined the basic constitutional relationship between the executive and judicial branches of government. More than one hundred fifty years later, their clashes still reverberate in constitutional debates and political battles.
In this dramatic and fully accessible account of these titans of the early republic and their fiercely held ideas, James F. Simon brings to life the early history of the nation and sheds new light on the highly charged battle to balance the powers of the federal government and the rights of the states. A fascinating look at two of the nation's greatest statesmen and shrewdest politicians, What Kind of Nation presents a cogent, unbiased assessment of their lasting impact on American government. -
Laboring Below the Line: The New Ethnography of Poverty, Low-Wage Work, and Survival in the Global Economy (2002)
Frank W. Munger
Frank Munger, editor
Introduction: Identity as a Weapon in the Moral Politics of Work and Poverty
As the distribution of wealth between rich and poor in the United States grew more and more unequal over the past twenty years, this economic gap assumed a life of its own in the popular culture. The news and entertainment media increasingly portrayed the lives of the poor with such stereotypes as the lazy welfare mother and the thuggish teen, offering Americans few ways to learn how the "other half" really lives. Laboring Below the Line works to bridge this gap by synthesizing a wide range of qualitative scholarship on the working poor. The result is a coherent, nuanced portrait of how life is lived below the poverty line, and a compelling analysis of the systemic forces in which poverty is embedded, and through which it is perpetuated. Laboring Below the Line explores the role of interpretive research in understanding the causes and effects of poverty. Drawing on perspectives of the working poor, welfare recipients, and marginally employed men and women, the contributors―an interdisciplinary roster of ethnographers, oral historians, qualitative sociologists, and narrative analysts―dissect the life circumstances that affect the personal outlook, ability to work, and expectations for the future of these people. For example, Carol Stack views the work aspirations of an Oakland teenager for whom a job is important, even though it strains her academic performance. And Ruth Buchanan looks at low-wage telemarketing workers who are attempting to move up the economic ladder while balancing family, education, and other important commitments. What emerges is a compelling picture of low-wage workers―one that illustrates the precarious circumstances of individuals struggling with the economic conditions and institutions that surround them Each chapter also explores the capacity for economic survival from a different angle, with ancillary commentary complementing the ethnographies with perspectives from other fields of study, such as economics. At this moment of governmental retrenchment, ethnography's complex, nonstereotypical portraits of individual people fighting against poverty are especially important. Laboring Below the Line reveals the ambiguities of real lives, the potential for individuals to change in unexpected ways, and the even greater intricacy of the collective life of a community.
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Brandeis and the Progressive Constitution: Erie, the Judicial Power, and the Politics of the Federal Courts in Twentieth-Century America
Edward A. Purcell, Jr.
This book examines both the constitutional jurisprudence of Supreme Court justice Louis D. Brandeis and one of his most famous and controversial opinions, Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins (1938). This landmark decision led to a significant relocation of power from federal to state courts, and, says the author, it provides a window on the legal, political, and ideological battles over the federal courts in the New Deal era and after.
Purcell received the Coif Triennial Book Award and the Triennial Griswold Prize for this book.
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Transitional Justice
Ruiti G. Teitel
Ruti Teitel explores the ways in which a society should respond to evil rule. This is an insightful analysis of one of the most fundamental political science issues of our times - how the emerging democracies in Eastern Europe and elsewhere should deal with the legal systems inherited from their authoritarian pasts.
Should the past system be repudiated altogether? Should the leaders from the authoritarian period be punished? If so, how? Under what principles of law would punishment be justified, given that the leaders were, in general, acting legally according to the legal systems in effect at the time? This book is the first systematic treatment of these issues.
Teitel brings an exceptional breadth of knowledge to bear on the problem, a must read for anyone interested in the role of law in contemporary world politics.
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A Practical Companion to the Constitution: How the Supreme Court Has Ruled on Issues from Abortion to Zoning
Jethro K. Lieberman
This is the most comprehensive and readable one-volume reference book in print, accessible to lay readers and specialists alike, on the meaning of the American Constitution as the Supreme Court has interpreted it. It is an indispensable tool for students and lay persons who want to understand today's constitutional controversies and their background in our history. It is equally useful to lawyers and other specialists who seek quick reviews of constitutional issues with immediate reference to cases for further research.
Unlike conventional treatises that discuss the Constitution clause by clause or under a few broad concepts, this book uniquely treats every aspect of the Constitution and every constitutional topic in alphabetical order, in more than 1,000 short essays. It is extensively cross-referenced and exhaustively indexed, so that even a reader with only a minimal notion of the Constitution or constitutional law can quickly find clear answers to questions about pressing issues of the day.
Among the other unique features: a set of introductory essays on the background of the Constitution and the many difficulties of interpreting it; a concordance to each word and phrase in the Constitution; a year-by-year chronology of justices who have served on the Supreme Court; and a table of the more than 2,650 Supreme Court cases from 1792 to the present referred to in the book, listing the vote, the author of the majority opinion, the concurring and dissenting justices, and the length of the opinions. -
Thomas Jefferson and Bolling v Bolling
Richard B. Bernstein
The manuscript account of the arguments in the case of Bolling v Bolling, chiefly in the hand of Thomas Jefferson, has been published for the first time in this book. The manuscript, which is now in the collection of the Henry E Huntington Library, contains the most complete known account of arguments submitted to an American colonial court. The book's introduction to the court case places it into its proper context.
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Competition Policy in America 1888-1992: History, Rhetoric, Law
Rudolph J.R. Peritz
Americans have long appealed to images of free competition in calling for free enterprise, freedom of contract, free labor, free trade, and free speech. This imagery has retained its appeal in myriad aspects of public policy--for example, Senator Sherman's Anti-Trust Act of 1890, Justice Holmes's metaphorical marketplace of ideas, and President Reagan's rhetoric of deregulation.
In Competition Policy in America, 1888-1992, Rudolph Peritz explores the durability of free competition imagery by tracing its influences on public policy. Looking at congressional debates and hearings, administrative agency activities, court opinions, arguments of counsel, and economic, legal, and political scholarship, he finds that free competition has actually evoked two different visions--freedom not only from oppressive government, but also from private economic power. He shows how the discourse of free competition has mediated between commitments to individual liberty and rough equality--themselves unstable over time. This rhetorical approach allows us to understand, for example, that the Reagan and Carter programs of deregulation, both inspired by the rhetoric of free competition, were driven by fundamentally different visions of political economy.
Peritz's historical inquiry into competition policy as a series of government directives, inspired by two complex yet distinct and sometimes contradictory visions of free competition, provides an indispensable framework for understanding modern political economy-- whether political campaign finance reform, corporate takeover regulation, or current attitudes toward the New Deal Legacy. Competition Policy in America will be of great interest to lawyers, historians, economists, sociologists, and policy makers in both government and business. -
Amending America: If We Love The Constitution So Much, Why Do We Keep Trying To Change It?
Richard B. Bernstein
Even as we marvel at the grandeur of our constitutional system, we can't resist tinkering with it. Amending America tells the dramatic story of how, over the past 206 years, the American people have reshaped the Constitution to meet the country's changing needs. It describes how we have adopted 27 amendments since 1789-and debated and rejected 10,000 more.
A provocative examination of one of America's most important yet least-known democratic tools, Amending America brings to life events in our history that continue to resonate today as, as various politicians have set their hearts on amendments to balance the budget, to ban abortion, or to allow school prayer.
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Defending Pornography: Free Speech & the Fight for Women’s Rights
Nadine Strossen
The newest attacks on the First Amendment and on free expression have come from a vocal and influential segment of the feminist movement that has launched a successful - and puritanical - crusade against "pornography" as the root of discrimination and violence against women. But, as Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union, forcefully argues, this view of sexuality as inherently dangerous does profound damage to human rights in general, and to women's rights in particular. In Defending Pornography, Strossen shows that, since the late 1970s, a new and startling alliance has been fused between "procensorship" feminists, most notably Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, and conservatives, many of whom oppose women's rights causes. Together they are campaigning against a wide range of sexually oriented expression, including not only art and literature, but also materials concerning abortion, contraception, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, sexism, and sexual orientation. One of America's most visible and articulate advocates of both feminism and free speech, Strossen is in the vanguard of an increasingly vocal group of feminist women who adamantly oppose any effort to censor sexual expression. Women's rights, Strossen demonstrates, are far more endangered by censorship than by sexual words or images. Strossen eloquently argues that women do not have to choose between speech and equality, between dignity and sexuality, between safety and "our freedoms to read, think, speak, sing, write, paint, dance, dream, photograph, film, and fantasize as we wish". Offering a feminist's unique perspective on the history of obscenity laws, she shows that censorship has long been - and continues to be - used as a tool to repress information vital to women's equality, health, and reproductive autonomy. As Defending Pornography makes devastatingly clear, those who would restrict freedom of expression ultimately restrict women's rights.
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Power Without Responsibility: How Congress Abuses the People through Delegation (1995)
David Schoenbrod
This book argues that Congress's process for making law is as corrosive to the nation as unchecked deficit spending.
David Schoenbrod shows that Congress and the president, instead of making the laws that govern us, generally give bureaucrats the power to make laws through agency regulations. Our elected "lawmakers" then take credit for proclaiming popular but inconsistent statutory goals and later blame the inevitable burdens and disappointments on the unelected bureaucrats. The 1970 Clean Air Act, for example, gave the Environmental Protection Agency the impossible task of making law that would satisfy both industry and environmentalists. Delegation allows Congress and the president to wield power by pressuring agency lawmakers in private, but shed responsibility by avoiding the need to personally support or oppose the laws, as they must in enacting laws themselves.
Schoenbrod draws on his experience as an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council and on studies of how delegation actually works to show that this practice produces a regulatory system so cumbersome that it cannot provide the protection that people need, so large that it needlessly stifles the economy, and so complex that it keeps the voters from knowing whom to hold accountable for the consequences. Contending that delegation is unnecessary and unconstitutional, Schoenbrod has written the first book that shows how, as a practical matter, delegation can be stopped.
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The Center Holds: The Power Struggle Inside the Rehnquist Court
James F. Simon
The Center Holds provides an intimate look at who the Supreme Court justices are, how they have made critical decisions, and why, ultimately, the Rehnquist Revolution failed.
Focusing on four key areas of civil rights and liberties—racial discrimination, abortion, criminal law, and First Amendment freedoms—TheCenter Holds provides an in-depth look at the Supreme Court documents that illustrate the battle between the old liberal order and emerging conservative majority, beginning in the early 1980s. James F. Simon, a former Time correspondent and contributing editor, ex-dean of New York Law School, and nationally recognized scholar of constitutional law, examines key decisions on civil rights and civil liberties in a readable, intimate look at some key Supreme Court Cases and includes absorbing descriptions of confidential memos and drafts gleaned from sources from within the court. -
Caveat Venditor: A Manual for Consumer Representation in New York. 2nd ed
Stephen A. Newman and Elizabeth Imholz
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Everything a Working Mother Needs to Know
Anne Weisberg and Carol Buckler
The first handbook to help working mothers maintain and enhance their careers includes advice on handling colleagues' misconceptions, alternative work arrangements, and child care.
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Logic and Experience: The Origin of Modern American Legal Education
William P. LaPiana
The 19th century saw dramatic changes in the legal education system in the United States. Before the Civil War, lawyers learned their trade primarily through apprenticeship and self-directed study. By the end of the 19th century, the modern legal education system which was developed primarily by Dean Christopher Langdell at Harvard was in place: a bachelor's degree was required for admission to the new model law school, and a law degree was promoted as the best preparation for admission to the bar. William P. LaPiana provides an in-depth study of the intellectual history of the transformation of American legal education during this period. In the process, he offers a revisionist portrait of Langdell, the Dean of Harvard Law School from 1870 to 1900, and the earliest proponent for the modern method of legal education, as well as portraying for the first time the opposition to the changes at Harvard.
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Private Acts in Public Places: A Social History of Divorce in the Formative Era of American Family Law
Richard H. Chused
Richard H. Chused examines more than 1300 petitions for divorce in Maryland filed during the first half of the nineteenth century. By weaving together information on the legislative handling of these petitions, the voting patterns of the state legislators, and the judicial treatment of related disputes, Chused shows the connections between politics, regional differences, and the development of American family law. His analysis also provides valuable insights into the social history of the time, a period when traditional Southern family values were at odds with the more modern values brought about by urbanization.
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