Why the public has lost faith in government and how it can be restored In 1964, over three-quarters of Americans trusted the federal government to do the right thing all or most of the time. By 1980, that number had plummeted to 26 percent, and Ronald Reagan won a sweeping victory for the presidency while proclaiming that government was not the solution to our problems but was itself the problem. Today, Americans’ trust in public institutions is at near historic lows and “bureaucracy” and “big government” are pejorative terms. In Rebuilding Expertise, William D. Araiza investigates the sources of this phenomenon and explains how we might rebuild trust in our public institutions. Written in accessible and engaging language, the author examines the history of this deterioration of trust and reveals how politicians from Clinton to Trump have allowed that deterioration to continue, and, in some cases, actively encouraged it. Using an interdisciplinary approach, with insights from history, political science, law, and public administration, Araiza explores our current bureaucratic malaise and presents a roadmap to finding our way out of it, toward a regime marked by effective, expert regulation that remains democratically accountable and politically legitimate. A timely and indispensable read, Rebuilding Expertise makes clear what steps must be taken to regain public trust in our government.

An introduction to the legal concept of unconstitutional bias. If a town council denies a zoning permit for a group home for intellectually disabled persons because residents don't want "those kinds of people" in the neighborhood, the town's decision is motivated by the public's dislike of a particular group. Constitutional law calls this rationale "animus." Over the last two decades, the Supreme Court has increasingly turned to the concept of animus to explain why some instances of discrimination are unconstitutional. However, the Court's condemnation of animus fails to address some serious questions. How can animus on the part of people and institutions be uncovered? Does mere opposition to a particular group's equality claims constitute animus? Does the concept of animus have roots in the Constitution? Animus engages these important questions, offering an original and provocative introduction to this type of unconstitutional bias. William Araiza analyzes some of the modern Supreme Court's most important discrimination cases through the lens of animus, tracing the concept from nineteenth century legal doctrine to today's landmark cases, including Obergefell vs. Hodges and United States v. Windsor, both related to the legal rights of same-sex couples. Animus humanizes what might otherwise be an abstract legal question, illustrating what constitutes animus, and why the prohibition against it matters more today than ever in our pluralistic society.

For over a century, Congress's power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of "the equal protection of the laws" has presented judges and scholars with a puzzle. What does it mean for Congress to "enforce" such a wide-ranging, open-ended provision when the Supreme Court has insisted on its own superiority in interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment? In Enforcing the Equal Protection Clause, William D. Araiza offers a unique understanding of Congress's enforcement power and its relationship to the Court's claim to supremacy when interpreting the Constitution. Drawing on the history of American thinking about equality in the decades before and after the Civil War, Araiza argues that congressional enforcement and judicial supremacy can co-exist, but only if the Court limits its role to ensuring that enforcement legislation reasonably promotes the core meaning of the Equal Protection Clause. Much of the Court's equal protection jurisprudence stops short of stating such core meaning, thus leaving Congress free (subject to appropriate judicial checks) to enforce the full scope of the constitutional guarantee. Araiza's thesis reconciles the Supreme Court's ultimate role in interpreting the Constitution with Congress's superior capacity to transform the Fourteenth Amendment's majestic principles into living reality. The Fourteenth Amendment's Enforcement Clause raises difficult issues of separation of powers, federalism, and constitutional rights. Araiza illuminates each of these in this scholarly, timely work that is both intellectually rigorous but also accessible to non-specialist readers.