Archive for the 'USH: Constitution & Early Years' Category
Monday, May 24th, 2010
In Tocqueville’s Discovery of America, Leo Damrosch, who teaches literature at Harvard, has seized an opportune moment to scratch the polished surface and explore what lay behind the oracular pronouncements. At a time when generalizations about the American soul seem risky at best, it is somehow reassuring to learn that even the great Tocqueville was often winging it—and that some of his direst fears have not come to pass…
Read on from Slate
Posted in USH: Constitution & Early Years | No Comments »
Saturday, February 13th, 2010
If high-school government class taught us anything, it’s that getting bills passed through Congress is a game of numbers: The bill with the most votes wins.
Turns out it’s not that simple. These days, the polarized state of American politics means that major bills need at least 60 votes to avoid an inevitable filibuster by the opposition.
Political scientist Gregory Koger’s new book, Filibustering: A Political History of Obstruction in the House and Senate, addresses the institutionalization of the filibuster — and describes congressional loopholes by way of which fast thinking and hard work can beat the numbers. Koger teaches American politics at the University of Miami. He joins host Terry Gross for a conversation about what has happened to simple majority rule.
Listen to Koger discuss the filibuster in an interview with Terry Gross
Posted in US GOV: Constitution Primer, US GOV: The Judiciary, USH: Constitution & Early Years | No Comments »
Monday, October 12th, 2009
Witness the American deputy solicitor general in his natural habitat—the Supreme Court. As Neal Katyal roams softly across the cool marble chamber, he has no idea what awaits him. He is here to protect his tribe—the U.S. government—which, in 1999, passed a statute making it a crime to create, sell, or possess “any visual or auditory depiction” of “animal cruelty” if the act of cruelty is itself illegal under either federal law or the law of the state in which the depiction occurred.
Read on from Slate
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Monday, October 12th, 2009
There’s just one person at oral argument in Salazar v. Buono this morning who really wants to talk about whether a 5-foot cross on federal government land in the Mojave National Preserve violates the Constitution’s Establishment Clause. But Justice Antonin Scalia really, really wants to talk about it. He looks particularly queasy when Peter Eliasberg—the ACLU lawyer whose client objects to crosses on government land—suggests partway through the morning that perhaps a less controversial World War I memorial might consist of “a statue of a soldier which would honor all of the people who fought for America in World War I and not just the Christians.”
Read on from Slate
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Monday, October 12th, 2009
Howard Zinn discusses his classic book A People’s History of the United States. James R. Green, Professor of History at UMass, Boston, moderates.
Posted in USH: Constitution & Early Years, USH: Introductory Materials | No Comments »
Monday, October 12th, 2009
Laurence Tribe discusses the evolution of how we interpret our country’s most important document. The renowned legal scholar argues that between the lines of our parchment Constitution, there is an “invisible Constitution.” Tribe purports that some of our most cherished and widely held beliefs about our constitutional rights are not even included in the written document. How does this “invisible Constitution” impact the central constitutional debates of our time from gun control to abortion to wire-tapping? How has this framework for reading the Constitution evolved, and how does it work?
Watch it. 85 minutes
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Saturday, August 15th, 2009
From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all.
From the Guardian
Posted in Dictatorship, US GOV: Constitution Primer, USH: Constitution & Early Years | No Comments »
Sunday, November 11th, 2007
In this lesson your will examine how the Electoral College works in order to better understand how Americans elect their president. This issue has become especially timely since the 2000 election when George W. Bush became president after winning the most electoral votes but losing the popular vote. In 2004, the election was once again a close one.
Your task is to explore the resources below and to respond to the questions provided at the bottom of this post. Be prepared to summarize, analyze and debate the Electoral College in class.
The Federal Electoral College Commission
National Archives: U.S. Electoral College FAQs
Online NewsHour Extra: How the Electoral College Works
Online NewsHour: November 23, 2000
Online News Hour: December 18, 2000
An Op-Ed from the NY Times
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Electoral College Response Sheet
Posted in US GOV: The Executive, USH: Constitution & Early Years | No Comments »