Primary Concerns: an investigation into the reduction in impact of the televised debate in U.S presidential primary campaigns

An MA submitted in part-fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of MA in US Politics and Contemporary History, Institute for the Study of the Americas, 2007-8

Civil Rights 3.0

It is now commonplace to hear the LGBT rights movement being described as the last, or the next, or today’s, pre-eminent civil rights issue. This chapter will explore what that means from several perspectives: What does the label tell us about the civil rights paradigm itself? If the achievement of marriage equality is the great civil rights achievement of this generation, what does that suggest about a future for equality more generally? How have new forms of, and technologies for, movement building affected the idea and practice of civil rights? Does the civil rights paradigm have a future? I focus in on three aspects of the social meaning of civil rights: legal doctrine and legal institutions, social movement strategies, and the tension between the discourse of challenges to social hierarchy and that of civil rights. What we learn is that LGBT advocates have contributed to the overall project of formal equality under law primarily by developing an extraordinary strategic and tactical dexterity, uniquely so at the state level and in its alliance with the business sector. As to the latter, however, there are serious potential disadvantages. In the current political framework, the possibility of advances in substantive equality law-–either statutory or Constitutional-–has shrunken to the point that, even as LGBT rights groups make breakthroughs in achieving goals such as marriage equality, they will do well to avoid having to take backward steps with regard to such overarching concepts as the disparate impact principle or heightened scrutiny. For the future, the big question for this movement-–and all other social justice movements in the United States-–is whether it will deploy its talents and resources to challenge embedded, structural forms of discrimination

Barack Obama and Congress: How the Rules of the Caucus Hinder the President’s Legislative Agenda

In order to fix the Democratic caucus, strong leadership, combined with effective rules, are needed. First, the overall leadership needs to be restructured according to the ideology of the caucus. While strong leadership may come from the center or the left, it is important that leadership tend toward the center of the caucus, not the national political center. A moderate member of the caucus who is under no threat of removal, such as Senator Schumer, Senator Stabenow, or Senator Durbin, would make effective leaders. Part of the problem with the current leadership is, at times, it has failed to “pull punches” when it is necessary. Occasionally, it is necessary to let a Senator know that their intransigence is not politically popular in their own state, and force some public pressure on the rogue Senator

Barack Obama and Congress: How the Rules of the Caucus Hinder the President’s Legislative Agenda

In order to fix the Democratic caucus, strong leadership, combined with effective rules, are needed. First, the overall leadership needs to be restructured according to the ideology of the caucus. While strong leadership may come from the center or the left, it is important that leadership tend toward the center of the caucus, not the national political center. A moderate member of the caucus who is under no threat of removal, such as Senator Schumer, Senator Stabenow, or Senator Durbin, would make effective leaders. Part of the problem with the current leadership is, at times, it has failed to “pull punches” when it is necessary. Occasionally, it is necessary to let a Senator know that their intransigence is not politically popular in their own state, and force some public pressure on the rogue Senator

History and growth of the food trailer scene of Austin, Texas

textWhat began as small taco carts on South Lamar and catering trucks at construction sites in Austin, Texas, local entrepreneurs have recently taken the idea of mobile food and expanded it into a regional phenomenon. This report focuses on the range of trailer owners in the Austin, the challenges owners face in the competitive food landscape and tough economy, regulations, and the process of getting started in the new frontier of food service. Austin boasts one of the largest communities of food trailers – stationary, yet technically mobile – populations in the United States and has influenced a growing culture throughout the country in recent years.Journalis

Tom DeLay: Popular Constitutionalist?

Focusing on congressional efforts to override state court decisionmaking in the Terri Schiavo case, this essay examines some of the practical problems associated with implementing Larry Kramer\u27s popular constitutionalism. In particular, lawmakers will invoke the will of the people when, in fact, they are pursuing special interest politics. More than that, the Schiavo case calls attention to the increasing partisanship within Congress. This partisanship, contrary to the objectives of popular constitutionalism, makes lawmakers less likely to advance the national interest and more likely to focus their energies on their increasingly partisan base. For this very reason, today\u27s Congress is less likely to facilitate Kramer\u27s project than earlier Congresses

Dignity and Social Meaning: \u3ci\u3eObergefell\u3c/i\u3e, \u3ci\u3eWindsor\u3c/i\u3e, and \u3ci\u3eLawrence\u3c/i\u3e as Constitutional Dialogue

The U.S. Supreme Court’s three most important gay and lesbian rights decisions—Obergefell v. Hodges, United States v. Windsor, and Lawrence v. Texas—are united by the principle that gays and lesbians are entitled to dignity. Beyond their tangible consequences, the common constitutional evil of state bans on same-sex marriage, the federal Defense of Marriage Act, and sodomy laws was that they imposed dignitary harm. This Article explores how the gay and lesbian dignity cases exemplify the process by which constitutional law emerges from a social and cultural dialogue in which the Supreme Court actively participates. In doing so, it draws on the scholarly literatures on dialogic judicial review and the role of social meaning in constitutional law. It illuminates how the Supreme Court interprets democratic preferences and constructs social meaning in order to apply fundamental constitutional norms to emerging legal claims. Contrary to the speculations of some commentators, “dignity” in these cases did not operate as some new form of constitutional right. Rather, the identification and protection of dignitary interests served as the unifying principle for a process, unfolding in three cases over thirteen years, through which constitutional law was brought into alignment with evolving public attitudes and policy preferences. The dignity decisions should be understood as majoritarian, not as acts of judicial will. They were broadly accepted because the Court’s insights about the status of gays and lesbians in American society were consistent with dramatic and long-term changes in cultural and public attitudes. As culture and attitudes evolved, so did the social meaning of anti-gay laws. Sodomy laws and marriage restrictions, once accepted as presumptively constitutional protections of tradition and public morality, increasingly came to be understood as impositions of stigma and humiliation—the kind of expressive harms that the U.S. Constitution forbids