The Forgotten History of the Electoral College--And Why It Matters Today
Distorting Democracy will awaken Americans to the perils of our system by unveiling the Electoral College's origins, history, and present operations. This book demonstrates that the system has no principled foundation, that it has changed dramatically over its 230-year history, and that it threatens the legitimacy of our political system in the ......
Second edition featuring a new foreword and afterword.The modern presidency has become the biggest fault line of polarization in America--the executive power to reshape American life and law has expanded beyond anything the Founding Fathers could have imagined. In this provocative book, author Gene Healy argues that the fault lies not in our ......
Dangerous Metaphors and Founding Myths in Congressional Politics
Why is the metaphor of the "Founding Fathers" so insidious-and how does it impact American politics? American politicians routinely invoke the metaphor of the "Founding Fathers" when referring to the men who supposedly set the United States on a path to greatness. On average, the term "Founding Fathers" is uttered by a congressional member every ......
Roland D. Sawyer was a Western Massachusetts state legislator who, over a half-century in politics, tackled some of the state's thorniest issues. The Political Life of Reverend Roland D. Sawyer by Tyler L. Wolanin offers insight into legislative politics in Massachusetts as it underwent political and economic transitions, urbanization, and unrest. ......
A Legal and Political History of the DREAM Act and DACA
The first comprehensive history of the DREAM Act and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) In 1982, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Plyler v. Doe that undocumented children had the right to attend public schools without charge or impediment, regardless of their immigration status. The ruling raised a question: what if ......
How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America
Understanding the greatest catastrophic failure of American Government. In 2022, Ira Shapiro completed what Brooking scholar William A. Galston called "an epic trilogy" chronicling the disastrous decline of the once-great Senate. The Founding Fathers gave the Senate many functions, but it had one overriding responsibility: to provide a check ......
The book introduces Legislative Conflict Theory. The theory suggests that conflict in legislatures in two-dimensional and that a moderate level of conflict will be most productive. The two types of conflict are policy differences and relational conflict. Using the US Congress as a testing ground, and novel indicators of both forms of conflict and ......
The U.S. Supreme Court is as important as ever in the lives of Americans. Contrary to the image-enhancing claims of independence that many of its members claim, however, the Court's current supermajority has transformed it into a powerful political institution that wages ideological war meant to return the nation to a previous period, at the same ......
A clear and comprehensive overview of presidential impeachment from a leading expert in the field As a result of Donald Trump's presidency, impeachment was once again thrust into the spotlight of American political discussion. However, its history goes back to the very founding of the nation, when American colonists, remembering their ......
Images, Fake News, and Mass Media as Weapons in the Hands of Two Populis
Trump and Mussolini: Images, Fake News, and Mass Media as Weapons in the Hands of Two Populists compares two historic men of power and influence, Donald Trump and Benito Mussolini, to analyze the commonality of practices and mannerisms between the two. From rhetoric to body language, to their control over oral and written communication and ......
Long established as a leading introduction to the American presidency, Presidential Leadership, Thirteenth Edition, provides students with a comprehensive survey that addresses the capacity of chief executives to fulfill their tasks, exercise their powers, and utilize their organizational structures to affect the output of government. The authors ......
Long established as a leading introduction to the American presidency, Presidential Leadership, Thirteenth Edition, provides students with a comprehensive survey that addresses the capacity of chief executives to fulfill their tasks, exercise their powers, and utilize their organizational structures to affect the output of government. The authors ......
In this annual review from the Cato Institute, leading legal scholars analyze the 2022-2023 Supreme Court term, specifically the most important and far-reaching cases of the year, plus cases coming up. Now in its 22nd edition, the Review is the first scholarly journal to appear after the term's end and the only one grounded in the nation's first ......
This book compares bipartisan Congressional majorities resolutely defending America from serious contemporary Chinese challenges with past episodes of Congressional activism.
Polsby and Wildavsky's classic text, now updated by Stephen Schier and David Hopkins, argues that the institutional rules of the presidential nomination and election processes, in combination with the behavior of the mass electorate, structure the strategic choices faced by politicians in powerful and foreseeable ways. We can make sense of the ......
Polsby and Wildavsky's classic text, now updated by Stephen Schier and David Hopkins, argues that the institutional rules of the presidential nomination and election processes, in combination with the behavior of the mass electorate, structure the strategic choices faced by politicians in powerful and foreseeable ways. We can make sense of the ......
The Era of Political Partisanship on the U.S. Supreme Court
This book provides a thorough overview of two decades of election law cases and sheds light on the impact these decisions have had on remaking America's electoral institutions.
Although Trump supporters depict him as a champion of the working class and a friend of minorities, this text demonstrates that the preponderance of evidence indicates that Trump promoted a right-wing public policy agenda that exacerbated inequality, benefited the economic elite, and hurt low-income white workers and minorities.