• In the beginning
• Founding firearms
• Why interpretive methods matter
• What do we mean by judicial activism?
• The unhealthy activism of the Roberts Court
• The long shadow Bush v. Gore
• The wages of Watergate
• Me, Inc.
• Votes behind bars
• Gideon's muted trumpet
• The cost of death
• What's a right without a remedy?
• When the umpire throws the pitches
• Empty benches
• Sometimes an amendment is just an amendment
• It takes two
• The constitution without the court.

Pamela S. Karlan is a unique figure in American law. A professor at Stanford Law School and former counsel for the NAACP, she has argued seven cases at the Supreme Court and worked on dozens more as a clerk for Justice Harry Blackmun. In her first book written for a general audience, she examines what happens in American courtrooms -- especially the Supreme Court -- and what it means for our everyday lives and to our national commitments to democracy, justice, and fairness. Through an exploration of current hot-button legal issues -- from voting rights to the death penalty, health care, same-sex marriage, invasive high-tech searches, and gun control -- Karlan makes a sophisticated and resonant case for her vision of the Constitution. At the heart of that vision is the conviction that the Constitution is an evolving document that enables government to solve novel problems and expand the sphere of human freedom. As skeptics charge congressional overreach on such issues as the Affordable Care Act and even voting rights, Karlan pushes back. On individual rights in particular, she believes the Constitution allows Congress to enforce the substance of its amendments. And she calls out the Roberts Court for its disdain for the other branches of government and for its alignment with a conservative agenda.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)9780262019897 20160612

• In the beginning
• Founding firearms
• Why interpretive methods matter
• What do we mean by judicial activism?
• The unhealthy activism of the Roberts Court
• The long shadow of Bush v. Gore
• The wages of Watergate
• Me, Inc.
• Votes behind bars
• Gideon's muted trumpet
• The cost of death
• What's a right without a remedy?
• When the umpire throws the pitches
• Empty benches
• Sometimes an amendment is just an amendment
• It takes two
• The constitution without the court
• Epilogue: A movable court.

Pamela S. Karlan is a unique figure in American law. A professor at Stanford Law School and former counsel for the NAACP, she has argued seven cases at the Supreme Court and worked on dozens more as a clerk for Justice Harry Blackmun. In her first book written for a general audience, she examines what happens in American courtrooms -- especially the Supreme Court -- and what it means for our everyday lives and to our national commitments to democracy, justice, and fairness. Through an exploration of current hot-button legal issues -- from voting rights to the death penalty, health care, same-sex marriage, invasive high-tech searches, and gun control -- Karlan makes a sophisticated and resonant case for her vision of the Constitution. At the heart of that vision is the conviction that the Constitution is an evolving document that enables government to solve novel problems and expand the sphere of human freedom. As skeptics charge congressional overreach on such issues as the Affordable Care Act and even voting rights, Karlan pushes back. On individual rights in particular, she believes the Constitution allows Congress to enforce the substance of its amendments. And she calls out the Roberts Court for its disdain for the other branches of government and for its alignment with a conservative agenda.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)9780262019897 20160612

• Race, incarceration, and American values
• Forum / Pamela S. Karlan, Loïc Wacquant, Tommie Shelby.

The United States, home to five percent of the worlds' population, now houses twenty-five percent of the world's prison inmates. Our incarceration rate - at 714 per 100,000 residents and rising - is almost forty percent greater than our nearest competitors (the Bahamas, Belarus, and Russia). More pointedly, it is 6.2 times the Canadian rate and 12.3 times the rate in Japan.Economist Glenn Loury argues that this extraordinary mass incarceration is not a response to rising crime rates or a proud success of social policy. Instead, it is the product of a generation-old collective decision to become a more punitive society. He connects this policy to our history of racial oppression, showing that the punitive turn in American politics and culture emerged in the post-civil rights years and has today become the main vehicle for the reproduction of racial hierarchies.Whatever the explanation, Loury argues, the uncontroversial fact is that changes in our criminal justice system since the 1970s have created a nether class of Americans - vastly disproportionately black and brown - with severely restricted rights and life chances. Moreover, conservatives and liberals agree that the growth in our prison population has long passed the point of diminishing returns. Stigmatizing and confining such a large segment of our population should be unacceptable to Americans. Loury's call to action makes all of us now responsible for ensuring that the policy changes.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)9780262123112 20160528

• First lecture : a short history of representation and discursive democracy
• Second lecture : campaign finance reform and the First Amendment
• Out-posting post / Lawrence Lessig
• Legitimacy, strict scrutiny, and the case against the Supreme Court / Frank Michelman
• Free speech as the citizen's right / Nadia Urbinati
• Citizens deflected : electoral integrity and political reform / Pamela S. Karlan
• Representative democracy / Robert C. Post.

The Supreme Court's 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, " which struck down a federal prohibition on independent corporate campaign expenditures, is one of the most controversial opinions in recent memory. Defenders of the First Amendment greeted the ruling with enthusiasm, while advocates of electoral reform recoiled in disbelief. Robert Post offers a new constitutional theory that seeks to reconcile these sharply divided camps. Post interprets constitutional conflict over campaign finance reform as an argument between those who believe self-government requires democratic participation in the formation of public opinion and those who believe that self-government requires a functioning system of representation. The former emphasize the value of free speech, while the latter emphasize the integrity of the electoral process. Each position has deep roots in American constitutional history. Post argues that both positions aim to nurture self-government, which in contemporary life can flourish only if elections are structured to create public confidence that elected officials are attentive to public opinion. Post spells out the many implications of this simple but profound insight. Critiquing the First Amendment reasoning of the Court in Citizens United, "he also shows that the Court did not clearly grasp the constitutional dimensions of corporate speech. Blending history, constitutional law, and political theory, Citizens Divided "explains how a Supreme Court case of far-reaching consequence might have been decided differently, in a manner that would have preserved both First Amendment rights and electoral integrity.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)9780674729001 20160613

• U.S.C. Section 1983
• Attorney's fees
• Administration of the Civil Rights Acts
• Additional reconstruction legislation
• Modern civil rights legislation : sex discrimination
• Structural reform litigation
• Appendix A. The Constitution of the United States of America
• Appendix B. Selected federal statutes

• History and philosophy of free expression
• Content-based restrictions : dangerous ideas and information
• Overbreadth, vagueness, and prior restraint
• Content-based restrictions : "low" value speech
• Content-neutral restrictions : limitations on the means of communication and the problem of content-neutrality
• Additional problems
• Historical and analytical overview
• The Establishment Clause
• The Free Exercise Clause : required accommodations
• Permissible accommodation.

• An introduction to the design of democratic institutions
• The right to participate
• The reapportionment revolution
• The role of political parties
• Money and politics
• Preclearance and the voting rights act
• Majority rule and minority vote dilution : constitutional and legislative approaches
• Racial vote dilution under the Voting Rights Act
• Redistricting and representation
• Race and representation : a new synthesis?
• Direct democracy
• Remedial possibilities for defective elections
• Alternative democratic structures.

• The Constitution's vision and values
• Judicial interpretation of the Constitution
• Equality
• Freedom of speech
• Promoting the general welfare
• Separation of powers
• Democracy
• Criminal justice
• Liberty
• Progress and possibilities.

Chief Justice John Marshall argued that a constitution "requires that only its great outlines should be marked [and] its important objects designated." Ours is "intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs." In recent years, Marshall's great truths have been supplanted by originalism and strict construction. Such legal thinkers as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia argue that the Constitution must be construed as it was in the eighteenth century-that judges must adhere to the original understandings of the founding law. In Keeping Faith with the Constitution, three legal authorities make the case for Marshall's vision. They describe their approach as "constitutional fidelity"-not to the indecipherable intent of the framers, but to the principles of the Constitution. The original understanding of the text is one source of interpretation, but not the only one; to preserve the meaning and authority of the document, to keep it vital, it must be shaped by evolving precedent, historical experience, practical consequence, and societal change. The authors range across the history of constitutional interpretation to show how this approach has been the source of our greatest advances, from Brown v. Board of Education to the New Deal, from the Miranda decision to the expansion of women's rights. They delve into the complexities of voting rights, the malapportionment of legislative districts, speech freedoms, civil liberties and the War on Terror, and the evolution of checks and balances. The Constitution's framers could never have imagined DNA, global warming, or even women's equality. Yet these and many more realities shape our lives and outlook. Our Constitution will remain vital into our changing future, the authors write, if judges remain true to this rich tradition of adaptation and fidelity.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)9780199738779 20160604

• The role of the Supreme Court in the constitutional order
• Federalism at work : Congress and the national economy
• The scope of Congress's powers : taxing and spending, war powers, individual rights, and state autonomy
• The distribution of national powers
• Equality and the Constitution
• Implied fundamental rights
• Freedom of expression
• The Constitution and religion
• State action, baselines, and the problem of private power.

• The role of the Supreme Court in the constitutional order
• Federalism at work : Congress and the national economy
• The scope of Congress's powers : taxing and spending, war powers, individual rights, and state autonomy
• The distribution of national powers
• Equality and the Constitution
• Implied fundamental rights
• Freedom of expression
• The Constitution and religion
• The Constitution, baselines, and the problem of private power.