This book explains why Congress is the indispensable institution for safeguarding popular, democratic, and constitutional government. Even though its record over the past two centuries presents a mixed picture, the record of the other two branches is also decidedly mixed. The author has worked for Congress for the past four decades and writes from a perspective that intimately understands its shortcomings while appreciating its strengths. He contends that portraying Congress as so inherently inept that it must be kept subordinate to presidential or judicial power is misguided and uninformed. The Constitution looks to Congress as the first branch because it is the institution through which citizens at the local and state level engage in self-government. Although Presidents claim to be the national representative, they cannot substitute for the knowledge and legitimacy brought by members of Congress. Congress, after all, is the people s branch and this book restores it to its rightful claim....

Available in two formats a single, hardback volume or two paperback volumes American Constitutional Law is the only book that develops constitutional law in the comprehensive sense. The book contains an analysis and excerpts of court decisions but also: highlights the efforts of legislatures, executives, the states, and the general public to participate in an ongoing political dialogue rather than passively receiving a series of unilateral judicial commands, covers all new developments in case law, congressional statutes, presidential policies, and initiatives undertaken by states under their own constitutions, adds a substantially revised chapter on equal protection that addresses immigration law and the rights of aliens, and includes readings not only from cases but congressional floor debates, committee reports, committee hearings, presidential vetoes and other statements, state actions, Federalist papers, and professional journals. Unlike other textbooks, American Constitutional Law illustrates how judicial and non-judicial forces intersect to shape and decide legal doctrines and practices. Compared to other texts, this book offers more citations to earlier decisions, allowing the student (and professor) to better understand the process of trial and error used to develop constitutional principles. Fisher and Harriger cover state involvement in constitutional law by offering examples of how states often depart from U.S. Supreme Court doctrines by interpreting their own constitutions....