Analyzes the current balance of power between the three branches of U.S. government, detailing how recent clashes over the exercise of powers has exposed a fundamental imbalance between the executive and legislative branches

As Congress and the president battle out the federal deficit, foreign involvements, health care, and other policies of grave national import, the underlying constitutional issue is always the separation of powers doctrine. In The Politics of Shared Power, a classic text in the field of executive-legislative relations, Louis Fisher explains clearly and perceptively the points at which congressional and presidential interests converge and diverge, the institutional patterns that persist from one administration and one Congress to another, and the partisan dimensions resulting from the two-party system.Fisher also discusses the role of the courts in reviewing cases brought to them by members of Congress, the president, agency heads, and political activists, illustrating how court decisions affect the allocation of federal funds and the development and implementation of public policy.He examines how the president participates as legislator and how Congress intervenes in administrative matters. Separate chapters on the bureaucracy, the independent regulatory commissions, and the budgetary process probe these questions from different angles. The new fourth edition addresses the line item veto and its tortuous history and prospects.A chapter on war powers and foreign affairs studies executive-legislative disputes that affect global relations, including the Iran-Contra affair, the Persian Gulf War in 1991, and American presence in conflicts such as Haiti and Bosnia. An important new discussion focuses on interbranch collisions and gridlock as they have developed since 1992.

Identifies individuals, organizations, issues, policies, and scandals associated with the presidency of the United States

Product Description: This text places the legal issues of constitutional law in the larger context of the American political framework, recognizing that the decisions of the Supreme Court grow from a dynamic political process. 195 cases are contained in this edition...read more

Product Description: This text places the legal issues of constitutional law in the larger context of the American political framework, recognizing that the decisions of the Supreme Court grow from a dynamic political process. 195 cases are contained in this edition...read more

Product Description: The balance of powers among the branches of government is the defining structure of American democracy. The Founders assumed each branch would jealously guard its own prerogatives to prevent tyrannical power. Were they wrong? In recent years Congress has progressively abdicated its role in two crucial areas: war powers and the budget process...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This paperback volume (subtitled ''Constitutional Structures: Separated Powers and Federalism'') includes chapters 1 through 9 of Fisher/Harriger, American Constitutional Law, Ninth Edition (hardback) plus the concluding chapter, ''Efforts to Curb the Court...read more

Product Description: It is widely held that foreign affairs, and more particularly issues of war and peace, lie beyond the scope of judicial scrutiny. In the recent case of Campbell v. Clinton, Judges Silberman and Tatel took diametrically opposite positions on the issue...read more

Product Description: This paperback volume (subtitled "Constitutional Rights: Civil Rights and Civil Liberties") includes chapters 10 through 19 of Fisher/Harriger, American Constitutional Law, Eighth Edition (hardback). American Constitutional Law is the only book that develops constitutional law in the comprehensive sense...read more

Product Description: It is often assumed that the judiciary especially the Supreme Court provides the best protection of our religious freedom. Louis Fisher, however, argues that only on occasion does the Court lead the charge for minority rights. More likely it is seen pulling up the rear...read more

Product Description: Though few question the importance of America's war on terror, President George W Bush's decision to try suspected terrorists before a military tribunal raises worries and questions about the protection of civil liberties and the rights of defendants in a trial...read more

Although huge in scope and impact, the 9/11 attacks were not the first threat by foreign terrorists on American soil. During World War II, eight Germans landed on our shores in 1942 bent on sabotage. Caught before they could carry out their missions, under FDR's presidential proclamation they were hauled before a secret military tribunal and found guilty. Meeting in an emergency session, the Supreme Court upheld the tribunal's authority. Justice was swift: six of the men were put to death—a sentence much more harsh than would have been allowed in a civil trial.Louis Fisher chronicles the capture, trial, and punishment of the Nazi saboteurs in order to examine the extent to which procedural rights are suspended in time of war. One of America's leading constitutional scholars, Fisher analyzes the political, legal, and administrative context of the Supreme Court decision Ex parte Quirin (1942). He reconstructs a rush to judgment that has striking relevance to current events by considering the reach of the law in trials conducted against wartime enemies.Fisher contends that, although the Germans did not have a constitutional right to a civil trial, the tribunal represented an ill-conceived concentration of power within the presidency, supplanting essential checks from the judiciary, Congress, and the office of the Judge Advocate General. He also reveals that the trials were conducted in secret not to preserve national security but rather to shield the government's chief investigators and sentencing decisions from public scrutiny and criticism. Thus, the FBI's bogus claim to have nabbed the saboteurs entirely on their own was allowed to stand, while the saboteurs' death sentences were initially kept hidden from public view. Fisher provides an inside look at the judicial deliberations, drawing on the 3,000-page tribunal transcript, Supreme Court records, and the private papers of the justices and executive officials involved. He analyzes the deep disagreements within the Roosevelt administration, leading to a conclusion in 1945 that the process used against the eight Germans had been defective and, thus, that an entirely different procedure was needed to prosecute two later German saboteurs. Nazi Saboteurs on Trial also reveals just how poorly the justices resisted wartime pressures and how badly they failed to protect procedural rights. Although Ex parte Quirin is cited as an "apt precedent" by the Bush administration for the trying of suspected al Qaeda terrorists, Fisher concludes that the 1942 decision was, in the words of Justice Felix Frankfurter, "not a happy precedent." His book provides a sober cautionary tale for our current effort to balance individual rights and national security.

Product Description: Book by Fisher, Louis

For over 200 years, Congress and the President have locked horns on an issue that will not, and cannot go away: legislative access to executive branch information. Presidents and their advisers often claim that the sought-for information is covered by the doctrine of executive privilege and other principles that protect confidentiality among presidential advisers. For its part, Congress will articulate persuasive reasons why legislative access is crucial. In terms of constitutional principles, these battles are largely a standoff, and court decisions in this area are interesting but hardly dispositive. What usually breaks the deadlock is a political decision: the determination of lawmakers to use the coercive tools available to them, and political calculations by the executive branch whether a continued standoff risks heavy and intolerable losses for the President. Many useful and thoughtful standards have been developed to provide guidance for executive-legislative disputes over access to information. Those standards, constructive as they are, are set aside at times to achieve what both branches may decide has higher importance; settling differences and moving on. Legal and constitutional principles, finely-honed as they might be, are often overridden by the politics of the moment and practical considerations. Efforts to discover enduring and enforceable norms in this area invariably fall short. Efforts to resolve interbranch disputes on purely legal grounds may have to give ground in the face of superior political muscle by a Congress determined to exercise the many coercive tools available to it. By the same token, a Congress that is internally divided or uncertain about its institutional powers, or unwilling to grind it out until the documents are delivered, will lose out in quest for information. Moreover, both branches are at the mercy of political developments that can come around the corner without warning and tilt the advantage decisively to one side. It is tempting to see the executive-legislative clashes only as a confrontation between two branches, yielding a winner and a loser. It is more than that. Congressional access represents part of the framers' belief in representative government. When lawmakers are unable (or unwilling) to obtain executive branch information needed for congressional deliberations, the loss extends to the public, democracy, and constitutional government. The system of checks and balances and separation of powers are essential to protect individual rights and liberties.

Product Description: After the terrorist operations of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush authorized the creation of military tribunals to try individuals who offered assistance to the attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. The military order issued by President Bush closely tracks the model established by President Franklin D...read more

Product Description: Book by Elsea, Jennifer, Fisher, Louis

Product Description: Nearly three decades after its initial publication, Louis Fisher's durable classic remains at the head of its class-a book that Congressional Quarterly called "as close to being indispensable as anything published in this field." This newly revised and updated fifth edition emphatically reinforces that sterling reputation...read more

The author assesses the longstanding tension between protecting constitutional rights and safeguarding national security in a study that focuses on how the Bush administration's responses to 9/11 have threatened the Constitution and the rights it protects. Simultaneous.