Birch Bayh


Book Description

A biography of the US senator from Indiana who was behind such monumental legislation as the 25th Amendment and Title IX. A remarkable history of one of the most legendary US senators of our time, Birch Bayh: Making a Difference reveals a life and career dedicated to the important issues facing Indiana and the nation, including civil rights and equal rights for women. Born in Terre Haute, Indiana, right before the Great Depression, Birch Bayh served more than 25 years in the Indiana General Assembly (1954–1962) and the United States Senate (1963–1981). His influence was seen in landmark legislation over his tenure, including Title IX, the 25th Amendment, the 26th Amendment, Civil Rights of the Institutionalized, Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention Act, and the Bayh-Dole Act. Bayh was also the author, chief Senate sponsor, and floor leader of the Equal Rights Amendment and successfully led the opposition to two Nixon nominees to the Supreme Court. Robert Blaemire profiles not only the prolific career of this remarkable senator but also an era when compromise and bipartisanship were common in Congress. “Bayh has long needed a comprehensive biography, and Robert Blaemire has provided an insider’s account of Bayh’s life and career and places him among Indiana’s leading political figures.” —Ray E. Boomhower, author of Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 Indiana Primary “The story of Birch Bay’s political career is completely inspiring, especially in an era that has lost touch with bipartisanship and civility. A must read for Hoosiers and for anyone interested in how democracy worked, when it really worked.” —Ted Widmer, historian and former presidential speechwriter




The Twenty-Fifth Amendment


Book Description

Undisputed as the most important synthetic work on the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, this revised edition provides the latest in legal thought regarding presidential succession. This new edition of The Twenty-Fifth Amendment: Its Complete History and Applications updates John Feerick's landmark study with the Amendment's uses in the past twenty years and how those uses (along with new legal scholarship) have changed the Amendment and perceptions of presidential disability in general. In its formulation, the Twenty-fifth Amendment was criticized as vague and undemocratic, but it has made possible swift and orderly successions to the highest offices in the U.S. government during some of the most extraordinary events in American history. The extent of its authority has been tested over the years: During the Watergate crisis, it was proposed that the Amendment might afford a means by which a president could transfer presidential power during an impeachment proceeding, and it was also suggested that the Amendment could authorize a vice president and cabinet to suspend a president during a Senate impeachment trial. Where once presidential disability was stigmatized, today a president under general anesthesia cedes presidential authority for the length of the procedure with little controversy. The Twenty-fifth Amendment is evolving rapidly, and this book is an invaluable guide for legal scholars, government decision makers, historians, political scientists, teachers, and students studying the nation's highest offices.




Tuesday Night Massacre


Book Description

While political history has plenty to say about the impact of Ronald Reagan’s election to the presidency in 1980, four Senate races that same year have garnered far less attention—despite their similarly profound political effect. Tuesday Night Massacre looks at those races. In examining the defeat in 1980 of Idaho’s Frank Church, South Dakota’s George McGovern, John Culver of Iowa, and Birch Bayh of Indiana, Marc C. Johnson tells the story of the beginnings of the divisive partisanship that has become a constant feature of American politics. The turnover of these seats not only allowed Republicans to gain control of the Senate for the first time since 1954 but also fundamentally altered the conduct of American politics. The incumbents were politicians of national reputation who often worked with members of the other party to accomplish significant legislative objectives—but they were, Johnson suggests, unprepared and ill-equipped to counter nakedly negative emotional appeals to the “politically passive voter.” Such was the campaign of the National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC), the organization founded by several young conservative political activists who targeted these four senators for defeat. Johnson describes how such groups, amassing a great amount of money, could make outrageous and devastating claims about incumbents—“baby killers” who were “soft on communism,” for example—on behalf of a candidate who remained above the fray. Among the key players in this sordid drama are NCPAC chairman Terry Dolan; Washington lobbyist Charles Black, a top GOP advisor to several presidential campaigns and one-time business partner of Paul Manafort; and Roger Stone, self-described “dirty trickster” for Richard Nixon and confidant of Donald Trump. Connecting the dots between the Goldwater era of the 1960s and the ascent of Trump, Tuesday Night Massacre charts the radicalization of the Republican Party and the rise of the independent expenditure campaign, with its divisive, negative techniques, a change that has deeply—and perhaps permanently—warped the culture of bipartisanship that once prevailed in American politics.







Indiana Political Heroes


Book Description

Politics has always played an important role in Indiana, and the state itself at one time furnished candidates for national office for an assortment of American political parties. From 1840, when Whig William Henry Harrison captured the White House with his “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” campaign, to 1940, when Wendell Willkie won the Republican presidential nomination and challenged incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt's try for a third term in office, approximately 60 percent of the elections had Hoosiers on a party’s national ticket. Indiana Political Heroes features essays on eight Hoosier politicians who have made a difference in Indiana and in the nation’s capital.




Purdue Number One


Book Description

The major impetus for this book was to provide the historical background of the discovery, the reproduction, the patenting and the marketing of the genetically superior Purdue #1, the first tree patented for timber uses and the philosophy behind it. Purdue #1 can be found growing in at least eight countries and in nearly every state in the union. It tells the story of Walt Beineke's childhood and adolescence in Indianapolis from Boy Scouts, Shortridge High School, to undergraduate work in forestry at Purdue University, and on to graduate school at Duke University and North Carolina State University emphasizing the influences that led to his 34 year career as a teacher and forest geneticist at Purdue University. The book includes stories of the people who shaped the development of Purdue #1 from family, to friends, to teachers, to colleagues, to nearly 100 students and even a few notables such as Bill and John Hillenbrand, Richard Lugar, Ralph Davis, Birch Bayh and Evan Bayh. Stories, some humorous, some poignant, some about the times and the way teaching and research was accomplished by a small cadre of graduate and undergraduate students in Purdue University's Department of Forestry and Natural Resources are the essence of this book. It is rich in connections among the various people and happenings from the period of recognition of the increased importance of growing trees and the applied research that has enabled the planting of Indiana black walnut around the world.




Hidden Illness in the White House


Book Description

The serious illness of three presidents—Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy—as well as the injury Ronald Reagan received in the assassination attempt upon him have revealed our woefully inadequate system for handling presidential incapacity. The authors believe that this flawed system poses a major threat to the nation, and they provide sobering reports on how the government functioned (or failed to function) during times of presidential impairment. The public was kept in the dark regarding the gravity of the presidential condition, often unaware that critical decisions were being made while the president was suffering from a severe illness. Hidden Illness in the White House contains startling new information on the severity of Roosevelt’s illness during the crucial Yalta negotiations and the fact that Kennedy suffered from Addison’s disease, a life-threatening illness, long before he was elected to the presidency. In each case the authors demonstrate that a largely successful effort was made to conceal the president’s true medical condition from the public.




Every Vote Equal


Book Description




America Back on Track


Book Description

From one of America's most respected progressive voices comes an inspiring vision of reform and renewal In a Senate career spanning more than four decades, Edward M. Kennedy has become one of the most authoritative voices in American politics. His first major book in more than twenty years, America Back on Track argues that our nation has departed more deeply from its fundamental ideals than at any time in modern history. From a dangerous foreign policy to the threats against constitutional checks and balances, Kennedy tackles the country's gravest concerns and charts a course toward a stronger, freer, and fairer America. A provocative call to action, this will be read by everyone seeking political clarity in these tumultuous times.




Larry Conrad of Indiana


Book Description

Larry A. Conrad was one of the most popular and influential politicians in the state of Indiana in the 1960s and 1970s. His story is the story of the political life of this key state in two pivotal decades of its and the nation's history. As a member of Senator Birch Bayh's staff, he wrote the twenty-fifth amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Although he lost in his race for Governor, he was nevertheless a major force in Indiana politics for two decades. He was the causal agent in reforming Indiana's Democratic Party, despite vicious and very personal political attacks from his opponents. After leaving public office in 1978, he became one of the leading figures in the movement to rebuild and revitalize Indianapolis. Scheele's biography, based on Conrad's papers and hundreds of interviews with colleagues, friends, and opponents, traces Larry Conrad's life from his humble origins through his education and his political and public careers.




Recent Books