Current Debates in American Government

Ryan Emenaker is Professor of Political Science at the College of the Redwoods. James Morone is the John Hazen White Professor of Political Science and Public Policy and director of the the A. Alfred Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy at Brown University.

• Table of ContentsPART I: IDEAS AND RIGHTSSECTION 1: THE SPIRIT OF AMERICAN POLITICS1.1) The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, July 4, 1776.1.2) Adam Davidson, "Why Are Some Countries Rich and Others Poor?" Plant Money Blog, NPR News, March 16, 2012.1.3) Jeffrey Lazarus, "Why More Republicans Don't Object to How Trump Fired Comey," The Washington Post, May 16, 20171.4) Penny Venetis, "Ginsburg's Legal Victories for Women led to Landmark Anti-Discrimination Rulings for the LGBTQ Community, Too," The Conversation, September 21, 2020.SECTION 2: THE IDEAS THAT SHAPE AMERICA2.1) Fredrick Douglass, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" 1852 speech delivered to Rochester Women's Antislavery Society.2.2) Howard Zinn, "Some Truths Are Not Self-Evident," The Nation, August 1, 19872.3) George Will, "Progressives Are Wrong about the Essence of the Constitution," The Washington Post, April 16, 2014.2.4) Meagan Day & Bhaskar Sunkara, "Think the Constitution Will Save Us?" Think again," NY Times, Aug. 9, 2018.2.5) Nicholas Kristof, "It's the Canadian Dream Now," The New York Times, May 14, 2014.2.6) Richard Clay Wilson "The Silly Longing for Small and Simple Government," Governing, Nov. 28. 2018.SECTION 3: THE CONSTITUTION3.1) James Read and Alan Gibson, "The Conversation: Four Myths about the Constitution," The Sacramento Bee, January 23, 2011.3.2) Robert Dahl, "The Constitution as a Model: An American Illusion," Chapter 3 in How Democratic Is the American Constitution?, Yale University Press, 2001, pp. 41-72.3.3) Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's comments before Senate Hearing 112-137, "Considering the Role of Judges under the Constitution of the United States," October 5, 2011.3.4) Louis Seidman, "Let's Give Up on the Constitution," The New York Times, December 30, 2012.3.5) Thurgood Marshall, "The Bicentennial Speech," Address Given at the San Francisco Patent & Trademark Law Association, May 6, 1987.SECTION 4: FEDERALISM AND NATIONALISM4.1) Clay Jenkinson, "Who's in Charge? Coronavirus and the Tenth Amendment," Governing, April 17, 2020.4.2) Seung Min Kim, "States Take on Immigration," Politico, May 19, 2014.4.3) Dan Levine, "In Trump Era, Democrats and Republicans Switch Sides on States' Rights," Reuters, January 26, 2017.4.4) Adam Liptak, "Trump v. California: The Biggest Legal Clashes," New York Times, April 5, 2018.4.5) Ilya Somin, "No More Fair-Weather Federalism," National Review, Aug. 18, 2017.SECTION 5: CIVIL LIBERTIES5.1) Amy, Howe, "More than Just a Playground Dispute," SCOTUSblog, August 12, 20175.2) Adam Liptak, "Justices to Hear Case on Religious Objections to Same-Sex Marriage," The New York Times, June 26, 2017.5.3) Kent Greenfield, "The Limits of Free Speech," The Atlantic, March 13, 2015.5.4) Deanna Paul, "Is Revenge Porn Protected by the Constitution? Some States Might Say Yes," Washington Post, May 19, 2019.5.5) "Cops, Cellphones and Privacy at the Court," New York Times, Nov. 26, 2017.SECTION 6: THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS6.1) Cass Sunstein, "Did Brown Matter?" The New Yorker, May 3, 2004.6.2) Stokely Carmichael, "What We Want," The New York Review of Books, September 22, 1966. Vo. 7. pp. 5-6, 8.6.3) Christopher Ingraham, "Study Finds Strong Evidence for Discriminatory Intent Behind Voter ID Laws," The Washington Post, June 3, 2015.6.4) Philip Bump, "Trump's Argument Against Transgender Soldiers," The Washington Post, July 26, 2017.6.5) Josh Lohmer, "An Issue of Sovereignty," National Council of State Legislatures, 2009.6.6) Mason Ameri & Douglas Kruse, "Study Shows How Airbnb Hosts Discriminate Against Guests with Disabilities as Sharing Economy Remains in ADA grey Area," The Conversation, May 12, 2020.PART II: POLITICAL BEHAVIORSECTION 7: PUBLIC OPINION7.1) Lynn Vavreck & Chris Tausanovitch, "It May Not Seem that Way, but Politicians Often Do What Voters Want," New York Times, July 17, 2019. 7.2) Harry L. Wilson, "If Polls Say People Want Gun Control, Why Doesn't Congress Just Pass it?" The Conversation, March 7, 2018.7.3) John Cassidy, "Is America an Oligarchy?," The New Yorker, April 18, 2014.7.4) Benjamin Ginsberg, "The Perils of Polling," presented to the 2008 conference on Polling and Democracy, Miller Center, University of Virginia, April, 2008.7.5) Peter Schrag, "Dysfunction: Maybe it's What the Voters Want," Sacramento Bee, June 14, 2011.7.6) Steven White, "Many Americas Support Trump's Immigration Order. Many Americans Backed Japanese Internment Camps, Too," The Washington Post, February 2, 2017.SECTION 8: POLITICAL PARTICIPATION 8.1) Eric Black, "Why is Turnout so Low in U.S. Elections? We make it More Difficult to Vote Than Other Democracies," MinnPost, October 1, 2014.8.2) Greg Weiner, "Our Constitutional Emergency," New York Times, March 26, 20198.3) Tina Rosenberg, "Putting Voters in Charge of Fair Voting," New York Times, Jan 23, 2018.8.4) Howard Zinn, "The Problem is Civil Obedience," 1971 speech given at Johns Hopkins University.8.5) Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore, "Colin Kaepernick & the Myth of the 'Good' Protest," New York Times, Nov. 20, 2017.SECTION 9: THE MEDIA9.1) Babak Bahador, "Did Pictures in News Just Change U.S. Policies in Syria?," The Washington Post, April 10, 2017.9.2) Danielle Kilgo, "Riot or Resistance? How Media Frames Unrest in Minneapolis will Shape Public's View of Protest," The Conversation, May 29, 2020. 9.3) Jonathan Rothwell, "Biased Media or Biased Readers? An Experiment on Trust," New York Times, September 26, 2018.9.4) Majorie Hershey, "Political bias in media doesn't threaten democracy - other, less visible biases do," The Conversation, October 15, 2020.9.5) Alexandra E. Petri, "How Fake News Tricks Your Brain," National Geographic, March 24, 2017.SECTION 10: CAMPAIGNS AND ELECTIONS10.1) Joshua Holzer, "What Could Replace the Electoral College?" The Conversation, May 20, 2020.10.2) Zoltan Hajnal et al., "Do Voter Identification Laws Suppress Minority Voting? Yes. We did the Research," The Washington Post, February 15, 2017.10.3) Ari Shapiro, "No Big Money or TV Ads--What's with The U.K.'s Low-Key Election?" NPR News, March 10, 2015.10.4) Hugo Mercier, "Do Political Campaigns Change Voters' Minds?" Wall Street Journal, January 17, 2020.10.5) Ben Pryor, "How Different Polling Locations Subconsciously Influence Voters," The Conversation, February 29, 2016.10.6) John Sides, "Five Key Lessons from Donald Trump's Surprising Victory," The Washington Post, November 9, 2017.SECTION 11: POLITICAL PARTIES11.1) Michael Riegner and Richard Stacy, "Democracy Without Political Parties: Constitutional Options," Center for Constitutional Transitions at NYU Law, June 2014.11.2) Peter J. Wallison and Joel M. Gora, "Better Parties, Better Government: A Realistic Program for Campaign Finance Reform," AEI Press, 2009. Excerpts.11.3) Alan Greenblatt, "Why Partisans Can't Kick the Hypocrisy Habit," NPR News, June 14, 2013.11.4) Julia Azari, "How could Roy Moore win? Because parties are weak and partisanship is strong," Vox, Dec. 12, 2017.11.5) Alexander Cohen, "The Two-Party System is Here to Stay" The Conversation, March 2, 2020.11.6) Ambreen Ali, "Can Activists Win by Losing?" Congress.org, August 12, 2008.SECTION 12: INTEREST GROUPS12.1) Alexis de Tocqueville, "Political Associations in The United States," Democracy in America, 1835.12.2) Dara Strolovitch, Affirmative Advocacy: Race, Class, and Gender in Interest Group Politics, University of Chicago Press, 2007. Excerpts.12.3) Matea Gold, "Ready for a Surprise? Money Does Equal Access in Washington," The Washington Post, March 11, 2014.12.4) Marie Hojnacki et al., "Business Doesn't Always Get Its Way," The Washington Post, June 10, 2015.12.5) Eric Lipton & Alexander Burns, "The True Source of the N.R.A.'s Clout: Mobilization, Not Donations," New York Times, Feb. 24, 2018.PART III: POLITICAL INSTITUTIONSSECTION 13: CONGRESS13.1) Greg Weiner, "Congress Doesn't Know its own Strength, New York Times, June 21, 201813.2) Yuval Levin, "Coequal>" Is My Trigger Word," National Review, June 5, 2019.13.3) Walter Oleszek, "Congressional Oversight: An Overview," Congressional Research Service, February 22, 2010.13.4) Annie Lowrey, "What If Senators Represented People by Income or Race, Not by State?" The Washington Post, February 7, 2011.13.5) Chris Cillizza, "People Hate Congress, but Most Incumbents Get Re-elected. What Gives?," The Washington Post, May 9, 2013.13.6) Diana Evans, "A Return to Earmarks Could Grease the Wheels in Congress, The Conversation, March 26, 2018.SECTION 14: THE PRESIDENCY14.1) Meagan Flynn and Allyson Chiu, "Trump Says His 'Authority is Total.' Constitutional Experts Have 'No Idea' Where He Got That," Washington Post, April 14, 2020.14.2) Allen Greenblatt, "Why Obama (And Any President) Fails To Meet Expectations," NPR News, March 12, 2013.14.3) Andrew Rudalevige, "President Trump Couldn't Pass Obamacare Repeal. This is Why," The Washington Post, March 24, 2017.14.4) Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux, "Why it Might be Impossible to Overturn a Presidential Pardon," FiveThirtyEight, Dec. 10, 2018. 14.5) William Howell and Terry Moe, "How a stronger presidency could lead to more effective government," Washington Post, Sept. 14, 2020.SECTION 15: BUREAUCRACY15.1) Matthew Spalding, "A Republic If You Want It," National Review, February 8, 2010.15.2) Douglas Amy, "The Case for Bureaucracy," Government Is Good Blog, 2007.15.3) Juliet Eilperin et al., "Resistance from Within: Federal Workers Push Back Against Trump," The Washington Post, January 31, 2017.15.4) Robert Reich, Locked in the Cabinet, Knopf, 1997. Excerpts.SECTION 16: THE JUDICIAL BRANCH16.1) Erwin Chemerinsky, "How the Supreme Court is Failing the Constitution," American Constitution Society Blog, September 17, 2014.16.2) Ryan Cooper, "Democrats Have a Better Option than Court Packing," The Week, Sept. 22, 2020.16.3) Lori Ringhand & Paul Collins Jr., "Why Not Limit Neil Gorsuch--and all Supreme Court Justices--to 18-Year Terms?" The Washington Post, March 23, 2017.16.4) David Orentlicher, "Unlike the U.S., Europe Picks Top Judges with Bipartisan Approval to Create Ideologically Balanced High Courts," The Conversation, Sept. 23, 2020.16.5) Ryan Emenaker, "High Court not Final Say on U.S. Law," Times-Standard, April 12, 2012.

Emenaker and Morone offer a thought-provoking selection of readings that should engage students, connecting contemporary politics to the fundamentals of American government. This text will push students to grapple with both the virtues and limitations of American democracy.