American government

Constitutional Lawyer Maxwell L. Stearns

Everybody’s Flawed, and Everybody Has Something to Contribute

Maxwell L. Stearns is the Venable, Baetjer & Howard Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. His latest book, Parliamentary America: The Least Radical Means of Radically Repairing Our Broken Democracy, draws on a world tour of different democracies and outlines a plan to turn the U.S. government into a parliamentary system. Before the Zócalo and Los Angeles Times event “Would Parliamentary America Have More Fun?,” Stearns stopped by our green room to chat Law & Order, constitutional conventions, and how to make the …

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One Nation … Under Parliament?

The Zócalo and Los Angeles Times Event ‘Would Parliamentary America Have More Fun?’ Considers a U.S. Governed by Multi-Party Coalitions

by Jackie Mansky |

“Convince me,” Los Angeles Times columnist Erika D. Smith told Maxwell L. Stearns, the author of the forthcoming book Parliamentary America: The Least Radical Means of Radically Repairing Our Broken …

The Dazzling 1830 Defense of a Strong Federal Government

New England Statesman Daniel Webster Found Religion in Centralized National Power When it Served His Region’s Interests

by Christopher Childers |

For generations, school children memorized the ending to Daniel Webster’s “Second Reply to Hayne,” delivered during the famous Webster-Hayne debate of January 1830. This most-famous-of-debates began in a modest fashion, …

The 1918 Flu Pandemic That Revolutionized Public Health

Mass Death Changed How We Think About Illness, and Government's Role in Treating It

By Laura Spinney |

Nearly 100 years ago, in 1918, the world experienced the greatest tidal wave of death since the Black Death, possibly in the whole of human history. We call that tidal …

Pledging Allegiance to Our Different—and Shared—Ideals of Citizenship

Even in Times of Bitter Partisanship, Americans Can Unite Around Common Beliefs and Goals

By Joe Mathews |

Citizenship in the United States is distinguished by how many different and contradictory abilities and actions it requires of citizens, said panelists at a Smithsonian/Zócalo “What It Means to Be …


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