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Author: Sanford Levinson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195365577
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 260
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Book Description
Levinson here argues that too many of our Constitution's provisions promote either unjust or ineffective government. Under the existing blueprint, we can neither rid ourselves of incompetent presidents nor assure continuity of government following catastrophic attacks. Worse, our Constitution is the most difficult to amend or update in the world. Levinson boldly challenges the Americans to undertake a long overdue public discussion on how they might best reform this most hallowed document and construct a constitution adequate to our democratic values.
Author: Sanford Levinson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195365577
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 260
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Book Description
Levinson here argues that too many of our Constitution's provisions promote either unjust or ineffective government. Under the existing blueprint, we can neither rid ourselves of incompetent presidents nor assure continuity of government following catastrophic attacks. Worse, our Constitution is the most difficult to amend or update in the world. Levinson boldly challenges the Americans to undertake a long overdue public discussion on how they might best reform this most hallowed document and construct a constitution adequate to our democratic values.
Author: Sanford Levinson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691152403
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276
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Book Description
"The book is intended to make clearer the ambiguities of "constitutional faith," i.e. wholehearted attachment to the Constitution as the center of one's (and ultimately the nation's) political life."--The introduction.
Author: Cynthia Levinson
Publisher: Peachtree Publishers
ISBN: 1682630242
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 239
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Book Description
Many of the political issues we struggle with today have their roots in the US Constitution. Husband-and-wife team Cynthia and Sanford Levinson take readers back to the creation of this historic document and discuss how contemporary problems were first introduced—then they offer possible solutions. Think Electoral College, gerrymandering, even the Senate. Many of us take these features in our system for granted. But they came about through haggling in an overheated room in 1787, and we’re still experiencing the ramifications. Each chapter in this timely and thoughtful exploration of the Constitution’s creation begins with a story—all but one of them true—that connects directly back to a section of the document that forms the basis of our society and government. From the award-winning team, Cynthia Levinson, children’s book author, and Sanford Levinson, constitutional law scholar, Fault Lines in the Constitution will encourage exploration and discussion from young and old readers alike.
Author: Meira Levinson
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674069587
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 454
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Book Description
While teaching at an all-Black middle school in Atlanta, Meira Levinson realized that students’ individual self-improvement would not necessarily enable them to overcome their profound marginalization within American society. This is because of a civic empowerment gap that is as shameful and antidemocratic as the academic achievement gap targeted by No Child Left Behind. No Citizen Left Behind argues that students must be taught how to upend and reshape power relationships directly, through political and civic action. Drawing on political theory, empirical research, and her own on-the-ground experience, Levinson shows how de facto segregated urban schools can and must be at the center of this struggle. Recovering the civic purposes of public schools will take more than tweaking the curriculum. Levinson calls on schools to remake civic education. Schools should teach collective action, openly discuss the racialized dimensions of citizenship, and provoke students by engaging their passions against contemporary injustices. Students must also have frequent opportunities to take civic and political action, including within the school itself. To build a truly egalitarian society, we must reject myths of civic sameness and empower all young people to raise their diverse voices. Levinson’s account challenges not just educators but all who care about justice, diversity, or democracy.
Author: Barry Meier
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0374712794
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 273
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Book Description
In late 2013, Americans were shocked to learn that a former FBI agent turned private investigator who disappeared in Iran in 2007 was there on a mission for the CIA. The missing man, Robert Levinson, appeared in pictures dressed like a Guantánamo prisoner and pleaded in a video for help from the United States. Barry Meier, an award-winning investigative reporter for The New York Times, draws on years of interviews and never-before-disclosed CIA files to weave together a riveting narrative of the ex-agent's journey to Iran and the hunt to rescue him. The result is an extraordinary tale about the shadowlands between crime, business, espionage, and the law, where secrets are currency and betrayal is commonplace. Its colorful cast includes CIA operatives, Russian oligarchs, arms dealers, White House officials, gangsters, private eyes, FBI agents, journalists, and a fugitive American terrorist and assassin. Missing Man is a fast-paced story that moves through exotic locales and is set against the backdrop of the twilight war between the United States and Iran, one in which hostages are used as political pawns. Filled with stunning revelations, it chronicles a family's ongoing search for answers and one man's desperate struggle to keep his hand in the game.
Author: Sanford Levinson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400821630
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 341
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Book Description
An increasing number of constitutional theorists, within both the legal academy and university departments of government, are focusing on the conceptual and political problems attached to the notion of constitutional amendment. Amendments are, among other things, recognitions of the imperfection of existing schemes of government. The relative ease or difficulty of amendment has significant implications for the ways that governments respond to problems that call either for new structures of governance or new powers for already established structures. This book brings together essays by leading legal authorities and political scientists on a range of questions from whether the U.S. Constitution is subject to amendment by procedures other than those authorized by Article V to how significant change is conceptualized within classical rabbinic Judaism. Though the essays are concerned for the most part with the American experience, other constitutional traditions are considered as well. The contributors include Bruce Ackerman, Akhil Reed Amar, Mark E. Brandon, David R. Dow, Stephen M. Griffin, Stephen Holmes and Cass R. Sunstein, Sanford Levinson, Donald Lutz, Walter Murphy, Frederick Schauer, John R. Vile, and Noam J. Zohar.
Author: Sanford Levinson
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300216459
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 367
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Book Description
In An Argument Open to All, renowned legal scholar Sanford Levinson takes a novel approach to what is perhaps America’s most famous political tract. Rather than concern himself with the authors as historical figures, or how The Federalist helps us understand the original intent of the framers of the Constitution, Levinson examines each essay for the political wisdom it can offer us today. In eighty-five short essays, each keyed to a different essay in The Federalist, he considers such questions as whether present generations can rethink their constitutional arrangements; how much effort we should exert to preserve America’s traditional culture; and whether The Federalist’s arguments even suggest the desirability of world government.
Author: William N. Eskridge
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814751326
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 297
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Book Description
While the Constitution is the cornerstone of American government, some who are most familiar with the document find it lacking. This unique volume brings together many of the country's most esteemed constitutional commentators and challenges them to select the "stupidest" provision of the Constitution--then to surmise possible results if different interpretations were applied.
Author: Sanford Levinson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022661204X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 226
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Book Description
It is no longer controversial that the American political system has become deeply dysfunctional. Today, only slightly more than a quarter of Americans believe the country is heading in the right direction, while sixty-three percent believe we are on a downward slope. The top twenty words used to describe the past year include “chaotic,” “turbulent,” and “disastrous.” Donald Trump’s improbable rise to power and his 2016 Electoral College victory placed America’s political dysfunction in an especially troubling light, but given the extreme polarization of contemporary politics, the outlook would have been grim even if Hillary Clinton had won. The greatest upset in American presidential history is only a symptom of deeper problems of political culture and constitutional design. Democracy and Dysfunction brings together two of the leading constitutional law scholars of our time, Sanford Levinson and Jack M. Balkin, in an urgently needed conversation that seeks to uncover the underlying causes of our current crisis and their meaning for American democracy. In a series of letters exchanged over a period of two years, Levinson and Balkin travel—along with the rest of the country—through the convulsions of the 2016 election and Trump’s first year in office. They disagree about the scope of the crisis and the remedy required. Levinson believes that our Constitution is fundamentally defective and argues for a new constitutional convention, while Balkin, who believes we are suffering from constitutional rot, argues that there are less radical solutions. As it becomes dangerously clear that Americans—and the world—will be living with the consequences of this pivotal period for many years to come, it is imperative that we understand how we got here—and how we might forestall the next demagogue who will seek to beguile the American public.
Author: Sanford Levinson
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700622993
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384
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Book Description
The Missouri legislature passes a bill to flout federal gun-control laws it deems unconstitutional. Texas refuses to recognize same-sex marriages, citing the state's sovereignty. The Tenth Amendment Center promotes the “Federal Health Care Nullification Act.” In these and many other similar instances, the spirit of nullification is seeing a resurgence in an ever-more politically fragmented and decentralized America. What this means—in legal, cultural, and historical terms—is the question explored in Nullification and Secession in Modern Constitutional Thought. Bringing together a number of distinguished scholars, the book offers a variety of informed perspectives on what editor Sanford Levinson terms “neo-nullification,” a category that extends from formal declarations on the invalidity of federal law to what might be called “uncooperative federalism.” Mark Tushnet, Mark Graber, James Read, Jared Goldstein, Vicki Jackson, and Alison La Croix are among the contributors who consider a strain of federalism stretching from the framing of the Constitution to the state of Texas's most recent threat to secede from the United States. The authors look at the theory and practice of nullification and secession here and abroad, discussing how contemporary advocates use the text and history of the Constitution to make their cases, and how very different texts and histories influence such movements outside of the United States—in Scotland, for instance, or Catalonia, or Quebec, or even England vis-à-vis the European Union. Together these essays provide a nuanced account of the practical and philosophical implications of a concept that has marked America's troubled times, from the build-up to the Civil War to the struggle over civil rights to battles over the Second Amendment and Obamacare.
