Should a president be immune from civil lawsuits? Can the federal government force local governments to enforce the Brady bill gun control law?Analyzes the institutional authority of government as it is interpreted in important Court decisions, including nation-state relations and economic liberties.

Capturing the authors’ excitement for constitutional law, this updated Tenth Edition of Constitutional Law for a Changing America shows students how judicial decisions are influenced by political factors—from lawyers and interest groups, to the shifting sentiments of public opinion, to the ideological and behavioral inclinations of the justices. Authors Lee Epstein and Thomas G. Walker show how these dynamics shape the development of constitutional doctrine. Known for fastidious revising and streamlining, the authors incorporate the latest scholarship in the fields of both political science and legal studies and offer solid analysis of both classic and contemporary landmark cases, including key opinions handed down through the 2017 session. Filled with additional supporting material—photographs of the litigants, sidebars comparing the United States with other nations, and "Aftermath" boxes that tell the stories of the parties′ lives after the Supreme Court has acted—the text helps students develop a thorough understanding of the way the U.S. Constitution protects civil rights and liberties. Bundle with the Resource Center for FREE! Take your constitutional law class beyond the book with Epstein and Walker’s newly redesigned Resource Center, featuring more than 500 excerpted, supplemental cases referenced in the commentary of the Constitutional Law for a Changing America volumes. The Resource Center offers a place for students to study core content with online quizzes and explore court cases. Instructors can find teaching materials, including hypothetical cases paired with discussion questions and writing assignments, moot-court simulations, test banks, and more. Ensure FREE access—use bundle ISBN: 978-1-5443-5051-6.

The great liberties and guarantees of the United States Constitution are stated as general principles, to be perpetuated and reapplied in a changing America. This book provides a basic understanding of Constitutional law, addressing both the history of the U.S. Constitution and each of its individual clauses. It explains the power of the Supreme Court, whereby a bare majority of five justices, each with lifetime tenure, can overrule the president, the Congress, and state and local governments--effectively declaring the rights and obligations of persons and organizations across the land. Referencing more than 950 Supreme Court decisions, the book treats each subject objectively and without opinionated commentary.

The 233-year story of how the American people have taken an imperfect constitution—the product of compromises and an artifact of its time—and made it more democratic Who wrote the Constitution? That’s obvious, we think: fifty-five men in Philadelphia in 1787. But much of the Constitution was actually written later, in a series of twenty-seven amendments enacted over the course of two centuries. The real history of the Constitution is the astonishing story of how subsequent generations have reshaped our founding document amid some of the most colorful, contested, and controversial battles in American political life. It’s a story of how We the People have improved our government’s structure and expanded the scope of our democracy during eras of transformational social change. The People’s Constitution is an elegant, sobering, and masterly account of the evolution of American democracy. From the addition of the Bill of Rights, a promise made to save the Constitution from near certain defeat, to the post–Civil War battle over the Fourteenth Amendment, from the rise and fall of the “noble experiment” of Prohibition to the defeat and resurgence of an Equal Rights Amendment a century in the making, The People’s Constitution is the first book of its kind: a vital guide to America’s national charter, and an alternative history of the continuing struggle to realize the Framers’ promise of a more perfect union.

An Introduction to Empirical Legal Research introduces empirical methodology in a legal context, explaining how empirical analysis can inform legal arguments; how lawyers can set about framing empirical questions, conducting empirical research, analysing data, and presenting or evaluating the results.

AMERICA , THIS IS YOU R ROAD MAP TO THE FUTURE—A RETURN TO THE GUIDIN G PRINCI PLES OF OU R FOUNDIN G FATHERS . . . The United States is at a crossroads. Our national debt is rising, our social programs are unsustainable, and our government is expanding at an alarming rate. As American citizens, we have a choice. We can continue on our current path of policies that threaten our freedoms, our families, and our finances—or we can join the powerful new resurgence of the age-old principles that are the foundation of the U.S. Constitution. This book is a wake-up call. Written by acclaimed conservative leaders Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski, it is a back-to-basics action plan inspired by the original words and beliefs of our nation’s forefathers. Using the U.S. Constitution, the authors guide us through our current political minefield, showing how both Democrats and Republicans have led our country astray. They reveal startling connections between the crash of the economy, the collapse of the family, and the rise of big government. They lay out a policy agenda of constitutional fixes for our greatest national problems, from retirement, to education, to social issues, to taxes. Finally, they offer Republicans a step-by-step plan for rebuilding the GOP from the ground up, for winning both Congress and the White House, and for changing directions on the road to our future. The time is now, America. The resurgence is under way; we should let nothing stop us. More than two centuries ago, our forefathers gave us the dream and the directions—spelled out in black and white. Now more than ever, we need to embrace those principles and get our country back on track.

Family Law in a Changing America is a new casebook that highlights law and family patterns as they are now, not as they were decades ago. By focusing on key changes in family life, the casebook attends to rising equality and inequality within and among families. The law, formally at least, accords more equality and autonomy than ever before, having repudiated hierarchies based on race, gender, and sexuality. Yet, as our society has grown more economically unequal, so too have family patterns diverged—with marriage and marital child-rearing becoming a mark of privilege. A number of developments—mass incarceration, the privatization of care, and reproductive technologies—have also contributed to disparities based on race, class, and gender. The casebook reflects the law’s continuing emphasis on marriage, but also treats nonmarital families as central. Rather than privilege the marital heterosexual family, the casebook organizes the presentation of the law around 1) adult relationships and 2) parent-child relationships. Professors and students will benefit from: Text that includes dramatic changes in family patterns in contemporary society, including: declining marriage rates, with differential rates based on race and class; increasing rates of nonmarital cohabitation and nonmarital parenting; the use of assisted reproduction and its challenge to biological understandings of parentage; tensions between women’s increasing education and employment and the perseverance of the gendered division of labor in families; the inclusion of same-sex couples in marriage and parenthood An approach that decenters the marital heterosexual family and instead is structured around the general topics of adult relationships and parent-child relationships Focus on the scope of family law, including extensive coverage of crucial sites of family regulation, such as the child welfare system, that are traditionally neglected Emphasis on multiple modes of legal interpretation (common law, constitutional, statutory) and multiple actors in the legal system (judges, legislators, lawyers, experts, social workers) Practical problems and exercises, often based on actual cases or events, that illuminate the gaps, tensions, and implications of existing doctrine; some of the problems include postscripts explaining how the issue was resolved by a court or legislature An approach that draws on more recent cases and cutting-edge issues and that includes extensive coverage of assisted reproduction (including IVF, surrogacy, and gamete donation), parentage (including intentional parenthood, functional parenthood, and multi-parent arrangements), adoption, child welfare, and family support