About The Ashwander Rules This project began over a decade ago as a napkin rumination: what would Louis Brandeis think of today's US Supreme Court? If he was alive, Brandeis' sense of propriety would constrain him from any direct comment, so I imagined how me might address the question as a novelist (in a private letter he once expressed an interest in trying his hand at fiction). The result is The Ashwander Rules, a parable of the modern Supreme Court, in which a secret Israeli Mossad operation in Washington D.C. works to save a fictional chief justice from assassination at the hands of domestic terrorists. In the spirit of Brandeis' Supreme Court opinion writing, The Ashwander Rules is an effort to educate the public -- and remind the Court -- about the importance of judicial restraint, especially as it relates to questions of constitutional law. The narrative also introduces a non-fiction alternative to two-party politics called the American Majority Party, www.american-majority.org, which is an internet adaptation of a good government initiative organized by Brandeis in 1903.

About The Ashwander Rules This project began over a decade ago as a napkin rumination: what would Louis Brandeis think of today's US Supreme Court? If he was alive, Brandeis' sense of propriety would constrain him from any direct comment, so I imagined how me might address the question as a novelist (in a private letter he once expressed an interest in trying his hand at fiction). The result is The Ashwander Rules, a parable of the modern Supreme Court, in which a secret Israeli Mossad operation in Washington D.C. works to save a fictional chief justice from assassination at the hands of domestic terrorists. In the spirit of Brandeis' Supreme Court opinion writing, The Ashwander Rules is an effort to educate the public -- and remind the Court -- about the importance of judicial restraint, especially as it relates to questions of constitutional law. The narrative also introduces a non-fiction alternative to two-party politics called the American Majority Party, www.american-majority.org, which is an internet adaptation of a good government initiative organized by Brandeis in 1903.

Designed for an undergraduate course in US constitutional law, the casebook takes a liberal arts approach, tracing constitutional doctrine and policy back to their foundation in social, moral, and political theory, and prompting students to engage the great questions of political life addressed by the Constitution and its interpretation. Opinions of the US Supreme Court constitute the core of the documents. The first edition was published in 1998; the second adds and updates topics. Annotation : 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

Comparing constitutions allows us to consider the similarities and differences in forms of government as well as the normative philosophies behind constitutional choices. The objective behind this Companion is to present the reader with a succinct yet wide-ranging companion to a modern comparative constitutional law course.

A "timely and hugely important" memoir of Justice John Paul Stevens's life on the Supreme Court (New York Times). When Justice John Paul Stevens retired from the Supreme Court of the United States in 2010, he left a legacy of service unequaled in the history of the Court. During his thirty-four-year tenure, Justice Stevens was a prolific writer, authoring more than 1000 opinions. In The Making of a Justice, he recounts his extraordinary life, offering an intimate and illuminating account of his service on the nation's highest court. Appointed by President Gerald Ford and eventually retiring during President Obama's first term, Justice Stevens has been witness to, and an integral part of, landmark changes in American society during some of the most important Supreme Court decisions over the last four decades. With stories of growing up in Chicago, his work as a naval traffic analyst at Pearl Harbor during World War II, and his early days in private practice, The Making of a Justice is a warm and fascinating account of Justice Stevens's unique and transformative American life.

This classic book on the role of the Supreme Court in our democracy traces the history of the Court, assessing the merits of various decisions along the way. Eminent law professor Alexander Bickel begins with Marbury vs. Madison, which he says gives shaky support to judicial review, and concludes with the school desegregation cases of 1954, which he uses to show the extent and limits of the Court’s power. In this way he accomplishes his stated purpose: “to have the Supreme Court’s exercise of judicial review better understood and supported and more sagaciously used.” The book now includes new foreword by Henry Wellington.Reviews of the Earlier Edition:“Dozens of books have examined and debated the court’s role in the American system. Yet there remains great need for the scholarship and perception, the sound sense and clear view Alexander Bickel brings to the discussion.... Students of the court will find much independent and original thinking supported by wide knowledge. Many judges could read the book with profit.” -Donovan Richardson, Christian Science Monitor“The Yale professor is a law teacher who is not afraid to declare his own strong views of legal wrongs... One of the rewards of this book is that Professor Bickel skillfully knits in "ations from a host of authorities and, since these are carefully documented, the reader may look them up in their settings. Among the author’s favorites is the late Thomas Reed Powell of Harvard, whose wit flashes on a good many pages.” -Irving Dillard, Saturday ReviewAlexander M. Bickel was professor of law at Yale University.

Unlike many other countries, the United States has few constitutional guarantees of social welfare rights such as income, housing, or healthcare. In part this is because many Americans believe that the courts cannot possibly enforce such guarantees. However, recent innovations in constitutional design in other countries suggest that such rights can be judicially enforced--not by increasing the power of the courts but by decreasing it. In Weak Courts, Strong Rights, Mark Tushnet uses a comparative legal perspective to show how creating weaker forms of judicial review may actually allow for stronger social welfare rights under American constitutional law. Under "strong-form" judicial review, as in the United States, judicial interpretations of the constitution are binding on other branches of government. In contrast, "weak-form" review allows the legislature and executive to reject constitutional rulings by the judiciary--as long as they do so publicly. Tushnet describes how weak-form review works in Great Britain and Canada and discusses the extent to which legislatures can be expected to enforce constitutional norms on their own. With that background, he turns to social welfare rights, explaining the connection between the "state action" or "horizontal effect" doctrine and the enforcement of social welfare rights. Tushnet then draws together the analysis of weak-form review and that of social welfare rights, explaining how weak-form review could be used to enforce those rights. He demonstrates that there is a clear judicial path--not an insurmountable judicial hurdle--to better enforcement of constitutional social welfare rights.

Why do you obey the speed limit? Why do you have a Social Security number? Why do you send your children to school? Most people would answer these questions with the statement, "It's the law." But is it really the law? Phantom Law Rules examines today's legal system in America in relation to what the legal system looked like when our founding fathers established our country. You may be surprised to see how different they are and how our current legal system has morphed over the years. Although we live in the "land of the free and the home of the brave, " our freedoms and rights are being slowly stripped away from the citizenry of the United States of America. Knowledge is power. Read Phantom Law Rules and expand your knowledge about American history, the current legal system, and what can be done to preserve our freedoms.

The fifth edition of the casebook, which is suitable either for a one- or two-semester course, strives to make constitutional law easily teachable and readily accessible for students. The authors have selected the cases very carefully and provided extensive excerpts of the opinions so that students get a good sense of the Court's reasoning. Text boxes call the students' attention to important aspects of each opinion, and the book is filled with introductions, points for discussion, hypotheticals, and executive summaries. The authors present a diversity of views on every subject, and, reflecting some of their own disagreements, the authors have written point-counterpoint discussions on many disputed questions.

The power of national and transnational constitutional courts to issue binding rulings in interpreting the constitution or an international treaty has been endlessly discussed. What does it mean for democratic governance that non-elected judges influence politics and policies? The authors of Judicial Power - legal scholars, political scientists, and judges - take a fresh look at this problem. To date, research has concentrated on the legitimacy, or the effectiveness, or specific decision-making methods of constitutional courts. By contrast, the authors here explore the relationship among these three factors. This book presents the hypothesis that judicial review allows for a method of reflecting on social integration that differs from political methods, and, precisely because of the difference between judicial and political decision-making, strengthens democratic governance. This hypothesis is tested in case studies on the role of constitutional courts in political transformations, on the methods of these courts, and on transnational judicial interactions.