Congress, the Constitution and the Supreme Court
Author: Charles Warren
Publisher:
Published: 1925
Total Pages: 328
ISBN-13:
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A Mere Machine
Author: Anna Harvey
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2013-11-26
Total Pages: 385
ISBN-13: 0300171110
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn this work, Anna Harvey reports evidence showing that the Supreme Court is in fact extraordinarily deferential to congressional preferences in its constitutional rulings.
The Supreme Court versus Congress
Author: William B. Glidden
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Published: 2015-03-17
Total Pages: 314
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA comprehensive and focused review of all of the Supreme Court's overturns of Congress on constitutional grounds from 1789 to the present suited to college-level political science and constitutional law courses as well as law school students. The always-controversial practice of judicial review of Congress is not prescribed in the Constitution, but is arguably a valid way to protect the rights of individuals or guard against unfair rule by the majority. This book offers a historical review and indictment of the Supreme Court's overruling of Congress, ultimately taking a position that this has been more detrimental than beneficial to the democratic process in the United States, and that in the aggregate rights of individuals and minorities would have been better served if the relevant laws of Congress had been enforced rather than struck down by the Court. Written by an author who is a historian and a lawyer, the book covers all Supreme Court overrides of Congress through 2014, including major historical turning points in Supreme Court legislation and such recent and relevant topics as the Affordable Care Act, limits on contributions to political candidates and campaigns from wealthy individuals, and the Defense of Marriage Act. The discussions of specific cases are made in relevant context and focus on "big picture" themes and concepts without skipping key details, making this a useful volume for law and university level students while also being accessible to general readers.
The Supreme Court and Constitutional Democracy
Author: John Agresto
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2016-10-15
Total Pages: 184
ISBN-13: 1501712918
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn The Supreme Court and Constitutional Democracy John Agresto traces the development of American judicial power, paying close attention to what he views as the very real threat of judicial supremacy. Agresto examines the role of the judiciary in a democratic society and discusses the proper place of congressional power in constitutional issues. Agresto argues that while the separation of congressional and judicial functions is a fundamental tenet of American government, the present system is not effective in maintaining an appropriate balance of power. He shows that continued judicial expansion, especially into the realm of public policy, might have severe consequences for America's national life and direction, and offers practical recommendations for safeguarding against an increasingly powerful Supreme Court. John Agresto's controversial argument, set in the context of a historical and theoretical inquiry, will be of great interest to scholars and students in political science and law, especially American constitutional law and political theory.
How Our Laws are Made
Author: John V. Sullivan
Publisher:
Published: 2007
Total Pages: 72
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKCongress's Constitution
Author: Josh Chafetz
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2017-06-27
Total Pages: 449
ISBN-13: 0300227647
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA leading scholar of Congress and the Constitution analyzes Congress’s surprisingly potent set of tools in the system of checks and balances. Congress is widely supposed to be the least effective branch of the federal government. But as Josh Chafetz shows in this boldly original analysis, Congress in fact has numerous powerful tools at its disposal in its conflicts with the other branches. These tools include the power of the purse, the contempt power, freedom of speech and debate, and more. Drawing extensively on the historical development of Anglo-American legislatures from the seventeenth century to the present, Chafetz concludes that these tools are all means by which Congress and its members battle for public support. When Congress uses them to engage successfully with the public, it increases its power vis-à-vis the other branches; when it does not, it loses power. This groundbreaking take on the separation of powers will be of interest to both legal scholars and political scientists.
Enforcing Equality
Author: Rebecca E Zietlow
Publisher: NYU Press
Published: 2006-10
Total Pages: 279
ISBN-13: 0814797075
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn Enforcing Equality, Rebecca E. Zietlow assesses Congress's historical role in interpreting the Constitution and protecting the individual rights of citizens, provocatively challenging conventional wisdom that courts, not legislatures, are best suited for this role. Specifically focusing on what she calls “rights of belonging”—a set of positive entitlements that are necessary to ensure inclusion, participation, and equal membership in diverse communities—Zietlow examines three historical eras: Reconstruction, the New Deal era, and Civil Rights era of the 1960s. She reveals that in these key periods when rights of belonging were contested and defined, Congress has played the role of protector of rights at least as often as the Supreme Court has adopted this role. Enforcing Equality also engages in a sophisticated theoretical analysis of Congress as a protector of rights, comparing the institutional strengths and weaknesses of Congress and the courts as protectors of the rights of belonging. With the recent new appointments to the Supreme Court and Congressional elections in November 2006, this timely book argues that individual rights are best enforced by the political process because they express the values of our national community, and as such, litigation is no substitute for collective political action.
Repugnant Laws
Author: Keith E. Whittington
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 2020-05-18
Total Pages: 432
ISBN-13: 0700630368
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhen the Supreme Court strikes down favored legislation, politicians cry judicial activism. When the law is one politicians oppose, the court is heroically righting a wrong. In our polarized moment of partisan fervor, the Supreme Court’s routine work of judicial review is increasingly viewed through a political lens, decried by one side or the other as judicial overreach, or “legislating from the bench.” But is this really the case? Keith E. Whittington asks in Repugnant Laws, a first-of-its-kind history of judicial review. A thorough examination of the record of judicial review requires first a comprehensive inventory of relevant cases. To this end, Whittington revises the extant catalog of cases in which the court has struck down a federal statute and adds to this, for the first time, a complete catalog of cases upholding laws of Congress against constitutional challenges. With reference to this inventory, Whittington is then able to offer a reassessment of the prevalence of judicial review, an account of how the power of judicial review has evolved over time, and a persuasive challenge to the idea of an antidemocratic, heroic court. In this analysis, it becomes apparent that that the court is political and often partisan, operating as a political ally to dominant political coalitions; vulnerable and largely unable to sustain consistent opposition to the policy priorities of empowered political majorities; and quasi-independent, actively exercising the power of judicial review to pursue the justices’ own priorities within bounds of what is politically tolerable. The court, Repugnant Laws suggests, is a political institution operating in a political environment to advance controversial principles, often with the aid of political leaders who sometimes encourage and generally tolerate the judicial nullification of federal laws because it serves their own interests to do so. In the midst of heated battles over partisan and activist Supreme Court justices, Keith Whittington’s work reminds us that, for better or for worse, the court reflects the politics of its time.
The Court Vs. Congress
Author: Edward Keynes
Publisher:
Published: 1989
Total Pages: 432
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSince the early 1960s the Supreme Court and its congressional critics have been locked in a continuing dispute over the issues of school prayer, busing, and abortion. Although for years the Court's congressional foes have introduced legislation designed to curb the powers of the federal courts in these areas, they have until now failed to enact such proposals. It is likely that these legislative efforts and the present confrontation with the Court will continue. Edward Keynes and Randall Miller argue that Congress lacks the constitutional power to legislate away the powers of the federal courts and to prevent individuals from seeking redress for presumed infringements of their constitutional rights in these areas. They demonstrate that neither the framers nor ratifiers of the Constitution intended the Congress to exercise plenary power over the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. Throughout its history the Court has never conceded unlimited powers to Congress; and until the late 1950s Congress had not attempted to gerrymander the Court's jurisdiction in response to specific decisions. But the authors contend this is just what the sponsors of recent legislative attacks on the Court intend, and they see such efforts as threatening the Court's independence and authority as defined in the separation of powers clauses of the Constitution.
The Age of Deference
Author: David Rudenstine
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2016
Total Pages: 345
ISBN-13: 0199381488
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Age of Deference traces the Court's role in the rise of judicial deference to executive power since the end of World War II.
