{"product_id":"the-odd-clauses-isbn-9780807000892","title":"The Odd Clauses","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn innovative, insightful, often humorous look at the Constitution’’s lesser-known clauses, offering a fresh perspective on the document’s relevance today\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e For a variety of reasons, many of the Constitution’s more obscure passages never make it to any court and therefore never make headlines or even law school classrooms, which teach from judicial decisions. In this captivating and witty book, Jay Wexler draws on his extensive professional and educational backgrounds in constitutional law to demonstrate how these “odd clauses” have incredible relevance to our lives, our government’s structure, and the integrity of our democracy.\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eContents\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChapter 1: The Incompatibility Clause \u003ci\u003eSeparation of Powers \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eChapter 2: The Weights and Measures Clause\u003ci\u003e Legislative Powers \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eChapter 3: The Recess-Appointments Clause \u003ci\u003ePresidential Powers \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eChapter 4: The Original-Jurisdiction Clause\u003ci\u003e Judicial Powers \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eChapter 5: The Natural-Born Citizen Clause \u003ci\u003eElected Office for (Almost) Anyone! \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eChapter 6: The Twenty-first Amendment Federalism \u003cbr\u003eChapter 7: The Letters of Marque and Reprisal Clause \u003ci\u003eForeign Affairs \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eChapter 8: The Title of Nobility Clauses \u003ci\u003eEquality \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eChapter 9:The Bill of Attainder Clauses \u003ci\u003eLiberty \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eChapter 10: The Third Amendment \u003ci\u003ePrivacy \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eAcknowledgments \u003cbr\u003eNotes \u003cbr\u003eIndex\u003c\/p\u003e“I  love this book. It is, believe it or not, an utterly entertaining constitutional  law book. I am blown away by Wexler's comedic skills and his ability to make the  usually dry subject matter so funny and readable.”—Gary  Gulman, Finalist, \u003ci\u003eLast Comic  Standing\u003c\/i\u003e and Guest, \u003ci\u003eLate Night  With David Letterman \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe  Tonight Show\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In  \u003ci\u003eHoly Hullabaloos\u003c\/i\u003e, Jay Wexler took  us along on what he called a \"road trip\" to some of the most important places  connected to the First Amendment's religion clauses. This time, in \u003ci\u003eThe Odd Clauses\u003c\/i\u003e, Wexler exits off the  highway to take us on a tour of some back roads of constitutional law: places  scholars and the public seldom visit like the Bill of Attainder Clause or the  Third Amendment (which prohibits quartering of troops in private houses during  peacetime, in case you didn't know.) The result is magical: you'll have so much  fun reading about these unsung constitutional provisions that you won't realize  until the trip is over how much you've learned.”—  Pamela S. Karlan, Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest  Law\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The book provides a fresh vantage point from which to consider the Constitution.”—\u003ci\u003eChoice Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Professor  Wexler dispenses his expertise on the Constitution with a light touch, imparting  many lasting insights and a few belly laughs along the way. What a delight to  discover that our founding document is not only brilliant, but brilliantly  weird.”—Ben  H. Winters, author of \u003ci\u003eSense and Sensibility  and Sea Monsters\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A  know-it-all's treasure trove, a cabinet of constitutional curiosities, \u003ci\u003eThe Odd Clauses \u003c\/i\u003etouches down on NASA,  Ellis Island, even Saturday Night Live. Jay  Wexler is brilliantly snarky, erudite and comedic.”—Julianna  Baggott, author of \u003ci\u003eGirl Talk \u003c\/i\u003eand  \u003ci\u003ePure\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The  maniacs who run the modern American political process seem determined to reduce  our Constitution to a electoral fetish object. Thank God, then, that we have Jay  Wexler, whose wise and funny treatise reminds us that the Constitution is, like  the men who drafted it, brilliant but imperfect. I learned more reading this  book than in my entire college career. This isn't saying much given my college  career, I realize. But I now plan to attend law school. It's that  good.”—Steve  Almond, author of \u003ci\u003eCandyfreak\u003c\/i\u003e and  \u003ci\u003eGod Bless  America\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eJay Wexler \u003c\/b\u003eteaches at the Boston University School of Law. He previously clerked for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and then served as a lawyer in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel. Wexler’s writing has appeared in \u003ci\u003eBoston \u003c\/i\u003emagazine, \u003ci\u003eSpy\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eMcSweeney’s Internet Tendency\u003c\/i\u003e, among other publications. His first book was \u003ci\u003eHoly Hullabaloos\u003c\/i\u003e: \u003ci\u003eA Road Trip to the Battlegrounds of the Church-State Wars\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cb\u003echapter 6\u003c\/b\u003e The Twenty-first Amendment: Federalism\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The  transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession  of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating  liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eAmendment XXI, Section 2\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis  may come as a surprise, but in the late 1960s, the problem of  “bottomless” dancing in California bars and nightclubs had spiraled out  of control. Or at least that was the opinion of the state’s Department  of Alcoholic Beverage Control, which became so worried about the menace  that it held a series of public hearings to figure out the extent of the  peril and what to do about it. The testimony at these hearings  revealed, in the words of one federal court, a “sordid” story,  “primarily relating to sexual contact between dancers and customers.”  Apparently, bottomless-dancing clubs were not nearly as wholesome as one  might imagine. According to a different court: “Customers were found  engaging in oral copulation with women entertainers; customers engaged  in public masturbation; and customers placed rolled currency either  directly into the vagina of a female entertainer, or on the bar in order  that she might pick it up herself.” The State of California, in other  words, had turned into a Bangkok red-light district.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf course,  the state had already made it illegal for customers and dancers to  engage in public sexual acts, but apparently those laws had not done the  trick (so to speak). The agency in charge of licensing the sale of  alcoholic beverages within the state therefore decided to do something  about the bottomless dancing itself. It passed a series of regulations  prohibiting a variety of lewd practices in any establishment selling  liquor. Specifically, no club holding a liquor license could allow any  person to perform acts of or simulating “sexual intercourse,  masturbation, sodomy, bestiality, oral copulation, flagellation . . .  [or] the touching, caressing or fondling on the breast, buttocks, anus,  or genitals.” The state figured that banning these activities in bars  would pretty much end them altogether; what guy, after all, is going to  pay money to watch a woman simulate caressing her buttocks if he can’t  enjoy a beer at the same time?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe problem, however, was that  California’s regulations seemed clearly to violate the First Amendment.  Fifteen or so years earlier, the Supreme Court had held that the  government may not ban arguably profane speech or expression that does  not rise to the level of “obscenity,” with the term “obscenity” being  very specifically defined as material that, when “taken as a whole,”  appeals to a “prurient” interest in sex and patently offends “community  standards” relating to sex, while completely lacking any “social  importance.” Nothing in the regulations limited their application only  to “obscene” instances of bestiality or flagellation. Accordingly, when a  group of dancers and license holders sued to have the regulations  invalidated, the three-judge lower federal court that heard the case  held that the regulations were unconstitutional.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Supreme  Court, however, reversed. The Court agreed that the “regulations on  their face would proscribe some forms of visual presentation that would  not be found obscene” under its prior cases. So why uphold the  regulations? The answer appeared to rest in the language of Section 2 of  the Twenty-first Amendment, which was ratified in 1933 to repeal the  era of Prohibition that had been ushered in fourteen years earlier by  the Eighteenth Amendment. According to the Court, Section 2 of the  Twenty-first Amendment acted like a thumb on the scale of state power,  giving states the authority to regulate alcohol in ways that would  otherwise violate the Constitution. As the Court put it: “[T]he broad  sweep of the Twenty-first Amendment has been recognized as conferring  something more than the normal state authority over public health,  welfare, and morals. . . . Given the added presumption in favor of the  validity of the state regulation in this area that the Twenty-first  Amendment requires, we cannot hold that the regulations on their face  violate the Federal Constitution.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat seems like a strange  result, doesn’t it? How could the amendment that ended Prohibition be  used by the Court to uphold a restriction on the sale of alcohol? Well,  that depends on what the Twenty-first Amendment was all about. Was it  about making alcohol legal, or was it about taking power over alcohol  away from the federal government and returning it to the states, where  it had always resided prior to 1919?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePerhaps the most difficult  issue facing the framers of the Constitution was how to balance the  powers of the new federal government with the powers of the states—to  work out, in other words, the problem of federalism. Between the end of  the Revolutionary War and the ratification of the Constitution, the  newly independent states had been operating under the Articles of  Confederation, a document that cre- ated a very limited federal  government and left most powers to the states. This regime worked  poorly, particularly because the states competed with each other for  economic supremacy, taxing each other’s goods and otherwise refusing to  trade freely among themselves. The federal government, lacking executive  and judicial power and possessing only a weak legislature, couldn’t do  anything to preserve interstate harmony. When the Constitutional  Convention met in 1787, it was clear that the federal government needed  to be given more power, but a lot of disagreement remained between the  so-called federalists and anti-federalists about exactly how much.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn  many ways, the Constitution represents a compromise between these two  camps. Most importantly, although the Constitution creates a  substantial, three-branch national government, it confers upon that  government only a series of specific, limited powers; everything else is  left to the states. As discussed in chapter 2, Congress may only  exercise those powers enumerated by the Constitution; the founding  document does not give Congress any sort of general police power to  regulate purely local activities. Likewise, as discussed in chapter 4,  the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary is limited to cases involving  federal law and cases involving plaintiffs and defendants from different  states. Run-of-the-mill controversies about real property, contract  terms, criminal law, and negligently dropping a brick on someone’s foot  generally cannot be heard by the federal courts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn addition, two  key amendments to the Constitution specifically protect the states. The  Eleventh Amendment, ratified in 1795, says: “The Judicial power of the  United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or  equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by  Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign  State.” The amendment was motivated by a famous early Supreme Court case  called Chisholm v. Georgia, which held that a citizen of South Carolina  could sue the State of Georgia to recover debts from the Revolutionary  War. The states kind of freaked out about the idea that people could sue  them for the mountains of debt they had incurred during the war, and  they acted promptly to enact the Eleventh Amendment. Even though the  language of the amendment clearly does not bar citizens from suing their  own state and clearly applies only to federal courts, the Supreme Court  has priggishly extended the amendment to all citizens and all courts.  As a result, states are immune from a lot of lawsuits that they  shouldn’t be, like suits brought against them by their own citizens to  enforce federal employment or environmental laws, even if these suits  are brought in state court.","brand":"Beacon Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46299804205285,"sku":"NP9780807000892","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780807000892.jpg?v=1767740768","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-odd-clauses-isbn-9780807000892","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}