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  United States v. Windsor, Hörbuch, Digital, 135min

  The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), enacted in 1996, states that, for the purposes of federal law, the words “marriage” and “spouse” refer to legal unions between one man and one woman. Since that time, some states have authorized same-sex marriage. In other cases regarding the DOMA, federal courts have ruled it unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment, but the courts have disagreed on the rationale. Edith Windsor is the widow and sole executor of the estate of her late spouse, Thea Clara Spyer, who died in 2009. The two were married in Toronto, Canada, in 2007, and their marriage was recognized by New York state law. Thea Syper left her estate to her spouse, and because their marriage was not recognized by federal law, the government imposed $363,000 in taxes. Had their marriage been recognized, the estate would have qualified for a marital exemption, and no taxes would have been imposed. On November 9, 2010 Windsor filed suit in district court seeking a declaration that the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional. At the time the suit was filed, the government’s position was that DOMA must be defended. On February 23, 2011, the President and the Attorney General announced that they would not defend DOMA. On April 18, 2011, the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the House of Representatives filed a petition to intervene in defense of DOMA and motioned to dismiss the case. The district court denied the motion, and later held that DOMA was unconstitutional. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed. Language: English. Narrator: uncredited. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/oyez/000019/bk_oyez_000019_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  Working Congress: A Guide for Senators, Representatives, and Citizens , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 203min

  In 1964, as the polarizing Civil Rights Act made its way through the House and Senate, and Congress navigated one of the most tumultuous eras in American history, a Harris Poll put the institution's approval rating at 60%. Why then, 50 years later, has the public's approval of Congress eroded to an all-time low of 10%? Working Congress: A Guide for Senators, Representatives, and Citizens seeks to isolate the reasons for Congress's staggering decline in public opinion, and to propose remedies to reverse the grave dysfunction in America's most important political institution. Aided by the input of retired members of Congress from both major parties, editor Robert Mann and his fellow contributors identify paralyzing partisan rancor as perhaps the most significant reason for the American public's declining support of its main representative body. The lack of mutual trust within Congress reflects (and creates) the suspicion and animosity of the great majority of Americans. Working Congress argues that members of Congress must find a path to cooperation if they are to function as the representative institution the founders intended. Trenchant chapters by Mickey Edwards, Ross K. Baker, Frances E. Lee, Brian L. Fife, Susan Herbst, and Mark Kennedy analyze the problems and challenges facing Congress and suggest solutions to counteract partisan gridlock. Though these scholars and former members share a conviction that men and women of good will can and should work together, they do not assume that their solutions will herald a bipartisan utopia. Instead, they recognize that Congress is, and will always be, a work in progress. The book is published by Louisiana State University Press. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Jim Seybert. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/acx0/088922/bk_acx0_088922_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  Enabling Acts: The Hidden Story of How the Americans With Disabilities Act Gave the Largest US Minority Its Rights , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 655min

  The first significant book on the history and impact of the ADA - the "eyes on the prize" moment for disability rights. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is the widest-ranging and most comprehensive piece of civil rights legislation ever passed in the United States, and it has become the model for disability-based laws around the world. Yet the surprising story behind how the bill came to be is little known. In this riveting account, acclaimed disability scholar Lennard J. Davis delivers the first behind-the-scenes and on-the-ground narrative of how a band of leftist Berkeley hippies managed to make an alliance with upper-crust, conservative Republicans to bring about a truly bipartisan bill. Based on extensive interviews with all the major players involved, including legislators and activists, Davis recreates the dramatic tension of a story that is anything but a dry account of bills and speeches. Rather, it's filled with one indefatigable character after another, culminating in explosive moments when the hidden army of the disability community stages scenes like the iconic Capitol Crawl or an event some describe as "deaf Selma", when students stormed Gallaudet University demanding a "deaf president now!" From inside the offices of newly formed disability groups to secret breakfast meetings surreptitiously held outside the White House grounds, here we meet countless unsung characters, including political heavyweights and disability advocates on the front lines. "You want to fight?" an angered Ted Kennedy would shout in an upstairs room at the Capitol while negotiating the final details of the ADA. Congressman Tony Coelho, whose parents once thought him to be possessed by the devil because of his epilepsy, later became the bill's primary sponsor. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Kevin Stillwell. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/adbl/023546/bk_adbl_023546_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  Deeply Divided: Racial Politics and Social Movements in Post-War America , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 974min

  By many measures - commonsensical or statistical - the United States has not been more divided politically or economically in the last hundred years than it is now. How have we gone from the striking bipartisan cooperation and relative economic equality of the war years and post-war period to the extreme inequality and savage partisan divisions of today? In this sweeping look at American politics from the Depression to the present, Doug McAdam and Karina Kloos argue that party politics alone is not responsible for the mess we find ourselves in. Instead, it was the ongoing interaction of social movements and parties that, over time, pushed Democrats and Republicans toward their ideological margins, undermining the post-war consensus in the process. The Civil Rights struggle and the white backlash it provoked reintroduced the centrifugal force of social movements into American politics, ushering in an especially active and sustained period of movement/party dynamism, culminating in today's tug of war between the Tea Party and Republican establishment for control of the GOP. In Deeply Divided, McAdam and Kloos depart from established explanations of the conservative turn in the United States and trace the roots of political polarization and economic inequality back to the shifting racial geography of American politics in the 1960s. Angered by Lyndon Johnson's more aggressive embrace of civil rights reform in 1964, Southern Dixiecrats abandoned the Democrats for the first time in history, setting in motion a sustained regional realignment that would, in time, serve as the electoral foundation for a resurgent and increasingly more conservative Republican Party.PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Eric Jason Martin. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/adbl/021433/bk_adbl_021433_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign, Hörbuch, Digital, 360min

  A Magnificent Catastrophe tells the story of the most perverse, bizarre, nail-biting, and influential election battle ever in U.S. history: America's first true presidential campaign, and a contest so important to the future of the country that Jefferson referred to it as "the second American Revolution" because the outcome resolved so much unfinished business about just what kind of government we would have. This election in many ways determined just how democratic a country we would be. George Washington had been a non-contested favorite for president and had never campaigned for the job. In 1796, the first election after Washington announced he would not run for a third term, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson squared off as the leading contenders, but carried on Washington's tradition of not actively campaigning. Adams beat Jefferson by just three electoral votes, and the stage was set for viscious battle next time. In the 1800 rematch between Adams and Jefferson, and the newly forming parties that each represented, the gloves came off with both sides launching into hard-core campaiging for the first time. All the tricks and tactics of partisan warfare that have become the hallmark of American elections were born. Before this election, the parties were merely informal networks and presidential administrations were bipartisan; after this election, the two-party system had been set in stone and all of the regrettable effects of bitter partisanship the Founders had warned of, and tried so hard to fend off, had been set in motion. This election shaped all future lines of battle in American politics. The audiobook tells the story of that tumultuous, year-long campaign, vividly conveying the heady and overheated spirit of the times and bringing the personalities of the leading players vividly to life. Language: English. Narrator: John Dossett. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/sans/000992/bk_sans_000992_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  The Great Equalizer , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 611min

  The experts say that America's best days are behind us, that mediocre long-term economic growth is baked in the cake, and that politically, socially, and racially, the United States will continue to tear itself apart. But David Smick - hedge fund strategist and author of the 2008 best seller The World Is Curved - argues that the experts are wrong. In recent decades, a Corporate Capitalism of top down mismanagement and backroom deal-making has smothered America's innovative spirit. Policy now favors the big, the corporate, and the status quo at the expense of the small, the inventive, and the entrepreneurial. The result is that working and middle class Americans have seen their incomes flat-lining and their American Dreams slipping away. In response, Smick calls for the great equalizer, a Main Street Capitalism of mass small-business startups and bottom-up innovation, all unfolding on a level playing field. Introducing a 14-point plan of bipartisan reforms for unleashing America's creativity and confidence, his forward-thinking book describes a new climate of dynamism where every man and woman is a potential entrepreneur-especially those at the bottom rungs of the economic ladder. Ultimately, Smick argues, economies are more than statistical measurements of supply and demand, economic output, and rates of return. Economies are people-their hopes, fears, dreams, and expectations. The Great Equalizer is a call for a set of new paradigms that inspire and empower average American people to reimagine and reboot their economy. It is a manifesto asserting that, with a new kind of economic policy, America's best days lie ahead.  ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Kiff VandenHeuvel. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/hach/004367/bk_hach_004367_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  The Spirit of Compromise: Why Governing Demands It and Campaigning Undermines It , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 374min

  If politics is the art of the possible, then compromise is the artistry of democracy. Unless one partisan ideology holds sway over all branches of government, compromise is necessary to govern for the benefit of all citizens. A rejection of compromise biases politics in favor of the status quo, even when the rejection risks crisis. Why then is compromise so difficult in American politics today? In The Spirit of Compromise, eminent political thinkers Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson connect the rejection of compromise to the domination of campaigning over governing - the permanent campaign - in American democracy today. They show that campaigning for political office calls for a mindset that blocks compromise - standing tenaciously on principle to mobilize voters and mistrusting opponents in order to defeat them. Good government calls for an opposite cluster of attitudes and arguments - the compromising mindset - that inclines politicians to adjust their principles and to respect their opponents. It is a mindset that helps politicians appreciate and take advantage of opportunities for desirable compromise. Gutmann and Thompson explore the dynamics of these mindsets by comparing the historic compromises on tax reform under President Reagan in 1986 and health care reform under President Obama in 2010. Both compromises were difficult to deliver but only tax reform was bipartisan. Drawing lessons from these and other important compromises - and failures to compromise - in American politics, Gutmann and Thompson propose changes in our political institutions, processes, and mindsets that would encourage a better balance between campaigning and governing. Calling for greater cooperation in contemporary politics, The Spirit of Compromise will interest all who care about whether their government leaders can work together. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Teresa DeBerry. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/adbl/007316/bk_adbl_007316_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  Citizens United v. FEC, Hörbuch, Digital, 185min

  Citizens United sought an injunction against the Federal Election Commission in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to prevent the application of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) to its film Hillary: The Movie. The Movie expressed opinions about whether Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton would make a good president. In an attempt to regulate "big money" campaign contributions, the BCRA applies a variety of restrictions to "electioneering communications." Section 203 of the BCRA prevents corporations or labor unions from funding such communication from their general treasuries. Sections 201 and 311 require the disclosure of donors to such communication and a disclaimer when the communication is not authorized by the candidate it intends to support. Citizens United argued that: 1) Section 203 violates the First Amendment on its face and when applied to The Movie and its related advertisements, and that 2) Sections 201 and 203 are also unconstitutional as applied to the circumstances. The United States District Court denied the injunction. Section 203 on its face was not unconstitutional because the Supreme Court in McConnell v. FEC had already reached that determination. The District Court also held that The Movie was the functional equivalent of express advocacy, as it attempted to inform voters that Senator Clinton was unfit for office, and thus Section 203 was not unconstitutionally applied. Lastly, it held that Sections 201 and 203 were not unconstitutional as applied to the The Movie or its advertisements. The court reasoned that the McConnell decision recognized that disclosure of donors "might be unconstitutional if it imposed an unconstitutional burden on the freedom to associate in support of a particular cause," but those circumstances did not exist in Citizen United's claim. Language: English. Narrator: uncredited. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/oyez/000021/bk_oyez_000021_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  Forcing the Spring: Inside the Fight for Marriage Equality , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 898min

  A tour de force of groundbreaking reportage by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jo Becker, Forcing the Spring follows the historic legal challenge mounted against California’s ban on same-sex marriage, a remarkable lawsuit that forced the issue of marriage equality before the highest court in the land. For nearly five years Becker embedded with the lawsuit’s plaintiffs, was given free rein within the legal and political war rooms where strategy was plotted, and attended every day of the trial and every appellate argument. Based on singular access to the internal workings of this momentous trial - and enlivened by original interviews with the participants on both sides of the case, many speaking for the first time - Forcing the Spring offers a gripping behind-the-scenes narrative with the lightning pace of the greatest legal thrillers. Forcing the Spring begins with California’s controversial ballot initiative Proposition 8, which banned gay men and lesbians from marrying the person they loved. But this electoral defeat galvanized an improbable alliance of opponents to the ban, with political operatives and Hollywood royalty enlisting attorneys Ted Olson and David Boies - the opposing counsels on the Supreme Court’s infamous Bush v. Gore ruling - to join together in a unique bipartisan challenge to the political status quo. Despite stiff initial opposition from the gay rights establishment, the case against Proposition 8 would ultimately force the issue of marriage equality all the way to the Supreme Court, transforming same-sex marriage from a partisan issue into a modern crisis of civil rights. Shuttling between the twin American power centers of Hollywood and Washington - and based on access to all the key players in the Justice Department and the White House - Becker offers insider coverage on the true story of how President Obama "evolved" to embrace marriage equality, the Obama administration’s surprising role in ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Jamie Leonhart. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/peng/002347/bk_peng_002347_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  Peak Trump: The Undrainable Swamp and the Fantasy of MAGA , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 1154min

  New York Times best-selling author David A. Stockman is the ultimate Washington insider turned iconoclast. He sounded the alarm on US deficit spending and special interest domination of both parties in the Triumph of Politics (1986); warned in The Great Deformation (2013) about massive public and private debt and the Fed's unhinged money printing and bailouts; and exposed the imperiled American economic dream in Trumped! (2016). Now in Peak Trump: The Undrainable Swamp and the Fantasy of MAGA, he debunks Trump-O-Nomics and the perils of Washington's addiction to perpetual wars. Stockman says Trump is headed for a great big fall from the imminent crash of a 30-year financial bubble, which he condemned on the campaign trail, but foolishly embraced once in office: "The Donald is not remotely the force of nature he's been made to seem by the Trump-obsessed media. To the contrary, he's actually a political flyweight, megalomaniacal incompetent, and bile-ridden bully who stumbled into the Oval Office against all odds; and then lucked-out a second time - bragging about the last gasp of a failing business cycle expansion that had 'recession ahead' written all over its forehead". Stockman says the Great Disrupter's lasting contribution will be to discredit "Imperial Washington's self-serving bipartisan consensus in favor of permanent war, unchained entitlements, fiscal incontinence, debt-fueled consumer spending, rampant corporate financial engineering and endless bubble inflations at the Fed." Stockman warns "the twin fiscal menace of the Warfare State and Welfare State" will be Trump's undoing. After taking the $2 trillion per year of uncontrolled entitlements off the table, Trump "then added insult to injury via his unfunded $1.7 trillion tax cut and massive defense and domestic spending increases. The result was a guaranteed $20 trillion explosion of the Federal debt over the coming decade."PLE ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Russell Newton. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/acx0/155666/bk_acx0_155666_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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