This book considers the distribution of power in the national government and explores how the constitutional scheme of separation of powers and checks and balances grants and controls power. It examines how the American Constitution and its amendments oblige the national and state governments.

Author Biography

Ralph A. Rossum is Salvatori Professor of American Constitutionalism at Claremont McKenna College. He has written or co-written eight books, including his most recent, Understanding Clarence Thomas: The Jurisprudence of Constitutional Restoration (Univ. of Kansas Press, 2013). He has served in the U.S. Department of Justice as Deputy Director of its Bureau of Justice Statistics and as a board member of its National Institute of Corrections.G. Alan Tarr is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and director of the centre for State Constitutional Studies, Rutgers University, Camden. He is author of twelve books, including Without Fear or favour: Judicial Independence and Judicial Accountability in the American States (Stanford University Press) and Judicial Process and Judicial Policymaking, Sixth Edition (Cengage). He has served as a constitutional consultant in Brazil, Burma, Cyprus, Russia, and South Africa. Three times an NEH Fellow, he is currently editor of a fifty-volume reference series on state constitutions.