{"title":"Michael Waldman","description":"Michael Waldman is president of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, a nonpartisan law and policy institute that works to revitalize the nation's systems of democracy and justice. He was director of speechwriting for President Bill Clinton from 1995 to 1999 and is the author of The Second Amendment: A Biography and The Fight to Vote. Waldman was a member of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court. A graduate of Columbia College and NYU School of Law, he comments widely in the media on law and policy.","products":[{"product_id":"the-second-amendment-a-biography-paperback","title":"The Second Amendment: A Biography - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eWidely acclaimed at the time of its publication, the life story of the most controversial, volatile, misunderstood provision of the Bill of Rights.At a time of increasing gun violence in America, Waldman's book provoked a wide range of discussion. This book looks at history to provide some surprising, illuminating answers. The Amendment was written to calm public fear that the new national government would crush the state militias made up of all (white) adult men--who were required to own a gun to serve. Waldman recounts the raucous public debate that has surrounded the amendment from its inception to the present. As the country spread to the Western frontier, violence spread too. But through it all, gun control was abundant. In the twentieth century, with Prohibition and gangsterism, the first federal control laws were passed. In all four separate times the Supreme Court ruled against a constitutional right to own a gun. The present debate picked up in the 1970s--part of a backlash to the liberal 1960s and a resurgence of libertarianism. A newly radicalized NRA entered the campaign to oppose gun control and elevate the status of an obscure constitutional provision. In 2008, in a case that reached the Court after a focused drive by conservative lawyers, the US Supreme Court ruled for the first time that the Constitution protects an individual right to gun ownership. Famous for his theory of \"originalism,\" Justice Antonin Scalia twisted it in this instance to base his argument on contemporary conditions. In The Second Amendment: A Biography, Michael Waldman shows that our view of the amendment is set, at each stage, not by a pristine constitutional text, but by the push and pull, the rough and tumble of political advocacy and public agitation.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51367076266207,"sku":"9781476747453","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/QxY_hOqdB09781476747453.webp?v=1789102316"},{"product_id":"the-fight-to-vote-paperback","title":"The Fight to Vote - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraised by the late John Lewis, this is the seminal book about the long and ongoing struggle to win voting rights for all citizens by the president of The Brennan Center, the leading organization on voter rights and election security, now newly revised to describe today's intense fights over voting.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAs Rep. Lewis said, and recent events in state legislatures across the country demonstrate, the struggle for the right to vote is not over. In this \"important and powerful\" (Linda Greenhouse, former \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e Supreme Court correspondent) book Michael Waldman describes the long struggle to extend the right to vote to all Americans. From the writing of the Constitution, and at every step along the way, as disenfranchised Americans sought this right, others have fought to stop them. Waldman traces this history from the Founders' debates to today's many restrictions: gerrymandering; voter ID laws; the flood of dark money released by conservative organizations; and the concerted effort in many state legislatures after the 2020 election to enact new limitations on voting. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDespite the pandemic, the 2020 election had the highest turnout since 1900. In this updated edition, Waldman describes the nationwide effort that made this possible. He offers new insights into how Donald Trump's false claims of fraud--\"the Big Lie\"--led to the January 6 insurrection and the fights over voting laws that followed one of the most dramatic chapters in the story of American democracy. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAs Waldman shows, this fight, sometimes vicious, has always been at the center of American politics because it determines the outcome of the struggle for power. \u003ci\u003eThe Fight to Vote\u003c\/i\u003e is \"an engaging, concise history...offering many useful reforms that advocates on both sides of the aisle should consider\" (\u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e).","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51369342206175,"sku":"9781982198930","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/UL6VwSHvt19781982198930.webp?v=1789140677"}],"url":"https:\/\/blackandbarhe.com\/collections\/michael-waldman.oembed","provider":"Black \u0026 Barhe Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}