Synopses & Reviews
Stephen Kern has discovered in Pre-Raphaelite and impressionist art a recurring pattern for arranging the sexes: a profiled man gazing at a woman who looks away from him and toward the viewer, while she ponders an apparent offer. Kern draws on such images to challenge the claim of some feminist critics and historians that gazing men monopolize subjectivity and turn women into sex objects. So intent are these writers on viewing women as victims, who in fact reveal a commanding subjectivity. Compared with the eyes of men, women's eyes are more visible, consider more varied thoughts, and convey more profound, if not more intense, emotions.
An authoritative and highly original survey of European art and literature, Eyes of Love also challenges another widely held belief - that a double standard has clearly governed how society judged the sexes. Kern supports these startling interpretations of Renoir, Manet, Degas, Rossetti, Gauguin, Millais, Hunt, Burne-Jones, and Tissot with every evidence from novels by Hugo, Flaubert, Zola, Dickens, C. Bronte, Gaskell, Eliot, Hardy, and H. James.
Review
“A major contribution to the field of election law.”
-Thomas E. Mann,The Brookings Institution
Review
“A pioneering study of the Court's increasing efforts to regulate the US political system. Hasen addresses both issues of legal doctrine and political science in his sweeping look at the Court's positions on such issues as the status of political parties, voting rights, redistricting, balloting procedures, and campaign finance reform.”
-Bruce Cain,University of California, Berkeley
Review
“Hasen engagingly draws on internal Court deliberations, as well as political science and legal theory, to assess and criticize dramatic transformations in the role of constitutional law in overseeing the structure of democracy. The Supreme Court and Election Law will interest all those concerned with understanding the relationship between constitutional law and democracy in struggles over how contested ideals of political equality should inform the design of democratic institutions."”
-Richard H. Pildes,NYU School of Law
Review
“Hasen provides a citizen's guide to the Court's decisions and offers an innovative proposal, contrary to many lawyers predispositions, saying why (and when) the Court should intervene but give little guidance to the people devising the laws that regulate our elections. This is a provocative analysis that deserves thorough consideration.”
-Mark Tushnet,Georgetown University Law Center
Review
“A major contribution to the field of election law.”
“A pioneering study of the Court's increasing efforts to regulate the US political system. Hasen addresses both issues of legal doctrine and political science in his sweeping look at the Court's positions on such issues as the status of political parties, voting rights, redistricting, balloting procedures, and campaign finance reform.”
“Hasen masterfully distills complex legal doctrines and sophisticated political theory into a succinct analysis filled with practical wisdom. Challenging the prevailing view of Bush v. Gore as an aberration, he shows that it is simply another patch in the crazy-quilt constitutional law of elections. Anyone who cares about American democracy should read this original, important, and thought-provoking book.”
“Hasen engagingly draws on internal Court deliberations, as well as political science and legal theory, to assess and criticize dramatic transformations in the role of constitutional law in overseeing the structure of democracy. The Supreme Court and Election Law will interest all those concerned with understanding the relationship between constitutional law and democracy in struggles over how contested ideals of political equality should inform the design of democratic institutions."”
“Hasen provides a citizen's guide to the Court's decisions and offers an innovative proposal, contrary to many lawyers’ predispositions, saying why (and when) the Court should intervene but give little guidance to the people devising the laws that regulate our elections. This is a provocative analysis that deserves thorough consideration.”
Review
“Hasen masterfully distills complex legal doctrines and sophisticated political theory into a succinct analysis filled with practical wisdom. Challenging the prevailing view of Bush v. Gore as an aberration, he shows that it is simply another patch in the crazy-quilt constitutional law of elections. Anyone who cares about American democracy should read this original, important, and thought-provoking book.”
-Robert J. Pushaw,Pepperdine University School of Law
Synopsis
In the first comprehensive study of election law since the Supreme Court decided
Bush v. Gore, Richard L. Hasen rethinks the Courts role in regulating elections. Drawing on the case files of the Warren, Burger, and Rehnquist courts, Hasen roots the Courts intervention in political process cases to the landmark 1962 case, Baker v. Carr. The case opened the courts to a variety of election law disputes, to the point that the courts now control and direct major aspects of the American electoral process.
The Supreme Court does have a crucial role to play in protecting a socially constructed “core” of political equality principles, contends Hasen, but it should leave contested questions of political equality to the political process itself. Under this standard, many of the Courts most important election law cases from Baker to Bush have been wrongly decided.
Synopsis
In the first comprehensive study of election law since the Supreme Court decided
Bush v. Gore, Richard L. Hasen rethinks the Court's role in regulating elections. Drawing on the case files of the Warren, Burger, and Rehnquist courts, Hasen roots the Court's intervention in political process cases to the landmark 1962 case, Baker v. Carr. The case opened the courts to a variety of election law disputes, to the point that the courts now control and direct major aspects of the American electoral process.
The Supreme Court does have a crucial role to play in protecting a socially constructed "core" of political equality principles, contends Hasen, but it should leave contested questions of political equality to the political process itself. Under this standard, many of the Court's most important election law cases from Baker to Bush have been wrongly decided.
About the Author
Stephen Kern is Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of History at Northern Illinois University. He is the author of The Culture of Time and Space, 1880-1918 and The Culture of Love: Victorians to Moderns.
Table of Contents
Introduction: mighty platonic guardians -- The Supreme Court of political equality -- Judicial unmanageability and political equality -- Protecting the core of political equality -- Deferring to political branches on contested equality claims -- Equality, not structure -- Conclusion: political equality and a minimalist Court -- Appendix 1: twentieth-century election law cases decided by the Supreme Court in a written opinion -- Appendix 2: Justice Goldberg's proposed dissent to a per curiam summary affirmation in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections.