Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1976
Publication Information
25 Jahrbuch des Öffentlichen Rechts der Gegenwart 281 (1976).
Abstract
From the Introduction:
"This report adheres as much as possible to the form and structure of the first two surveys. Thus, we begin this report with an overview of recent presidential elections and a discussion of the American electoral process. The article then moves on to a treatment of changes in federal-state relations, government organization, the distribution of power among the branches and levels of government, and constitutional law as judicially defined. Unlike the previous reports, however, we have devoted nearly half of this survey to recent public policy in the area of civil rights. This extensive treatment of civil rights is fully warranted, we feel, by the explosive racial tensions of the 1960's and by the increasing demand of women and minorities in the 1970's for an end to discrimination based on gender and race. The far-reaching and historic measures taken by President Lyndon B. Johnson to eliminate the consequences of past injustices and present prejudices with respect to black Americans are alone sufficient to justify making civil rights policy a major theme of this report. In addition, nearly all of American's social problems — poverty, unemployment, inflation, urban blight, rising crime rates, housing, and health care — have struck with heavy impact and particular harshness upon black Americans. So, in a very real sense, the struggle of blacks to obtain full equality in American society is inextricably linked to these other social problems.
Our chronicle roughly begins with the November 1964 presidential election and extends to events up to and including the state presidential primary election campaigns of 1976. It is a selective coverage of the national government and of federal policy and constitutional law; apart from the section on federal-state relations, it makes no attempt to cover developments in public policy or governmental organization at the state or local level. Finally, we assume that our readers have some basic familiarity with the American legal order and political institutions. We have not repeated the background material contained in Professor Loewenstein's earlier reports. Those unfamiliar with this background are advised to consult those reports."
Recommended Citation
Donald P. Kommers & Kevin C. Gallagher,
Continuity and Change in American Constitutional Development and Public Policy: 1964-1976,
25 Jahrbuch des Öffentlichen Rechts der Gegenwart 281 (1976)..
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_faculty_scholarship/1379
Comments
From the Introduction:
"This review of constitutional change and development m the United States from 1964 to 1976 is a continuation of the comprehensive surveys written in earlier volumes of Jahrbuch des oeffentlichen Rechts by Karl Loewenstein, a distinguished professor of public law who taught at Amherst College (U.S.A.) and the University of Munich. The first report, published in 1955, covered the years 1933–1954 (J.o.R. N.F. Bd. 4, S. 1–153); the second, published in 1964, covered the years 1955–1964 (J.o.R. N. F. Bd. 13, S. 1–116). Both reports were intended to give German and other non-American readers of the Jahrbuch an authoritative account of constitutional developments in the United States. They were written to inform as well as to enable intelligent men and women to make sensible and equitable judgments about the condition of American constitutional democracy."