This book is the first to compare the freedoms and protections of members of the United States Congress with those of Britain's Parliament. Placing legislative privilege in historical context, Josh Chafetz explores how and why legislators in Britain and America have been granted special privileges in five areas: jurisdictional conflicts between the courts and the legislative houses, freedom of speech, freedom from civil arrest, contested elections, and the disciplinary powers of the houses.
Legislative privilege is a crucial component of the relationship between a representative body and the other participants in government, including the people. In recounting and analyzing the remarkable story of how parliamentary government emerged and evolved in Britain and how it crossed the Atlantic, Chafetz illuminates a variety of important constitutional issues, including the separation of powers, the nature of representation, and the difference between written and unwritten constitutionalism. This book will inspire in readers a much greater appreciation for the rise and triumph of democracy.

The Sixth Edition offers a comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to the vital field of legislation and regulation. It addresses efforts by President Trump to curtail the powers of the administrative state, and new Supreme Court decisions reviewing challenges to these efforts under the Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act. In addition, the Sixth Edition expands its celebrated treatment of statutory interpretation, examining recent debates among textualists, legal process advocates, and pragmatists about future directions of interpretation in a post-Scalia era. The new edition also creates separate chapters addressed to intrinsic interpretive doctrines (dictionaries and canons) and extrinsic doctrines (the common law, legislative background, and other statutes), with each chapter highlighting recent decisions by the Supreme Court. Finally, the Sixth Edition includes important updates on the law of the legislative process—notably developments addressed to equality in representation; racial and national origin vote dilution; political gerrymandering; and bribery of public officials. The Sixth Edition makes a uniquely rich contribution to the field: it is perfect for 1L Legislation and Legislation-Regulation (LegReg) courses, and it remains the go-to book for upper level courses.