Field, who works in the US Congress and has degrees in political science and US history, investigates the role of the US Congress in interpreting and applying the Constitution. After considering historical and scholarly antecedents to current deliberative efforts, he looks closely at case studies that cut across policy domains--the Civil Rights Act of 1991, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, and the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007--and the constitutional deliberation and scope and character of constitutional discourse in Congress, ending with a chapter on deliberation, affiliation, and the political system. Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
