FISHER, Louis 1934-

PERSONAL: Born August 17, 1934, in Norfolk, VA; son of Louis (in public relations) and Marjorie (Leyden) Fisher; married Alice Togio, October 2, 1968 (divorced, 1980); children: Ellen Beckwith, Joanna Leyden. Education: College of William and Mary, B.S., 1956; New School for Social Research, M.A., 1966, Ph.D., 1967.

ADDRESSES: Home—520 Ridgewell Way, Silver Spring, MD 20902. Offıce—Library of Congress, Washington, DC 20540. E-mail—lfisher@crs.loc.gov

CAREER: Political scholar, educator, and author. Dow Chemical Company, Midland, MI, sales representative, 1959-60; Miles-Samuelson (advertising agency), New York, NY, writer, 1960-62; Plastics Technology (magazine), New York, NY, assistant editor, 1962-63; Queens College of the City University of New York, Flushing, NY, assistant professor of political science, 1967-70; Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, Washington, DC, analyst, 1970-74, specialist, 1974-88, senior specialist (separation of powers), 1988—. Has also been professor of political science and law at American University, Washington, DC, 1975-77; Georgetown University, Washington, DC, 1976-77; Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, 1987; Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 1989; College of William and Mary, School of Law, Williamsburg, VA, 1990-92; and Catholic University, School of Law, Washington, DC, 1992-96. Military service: U.S. Army, 1957-59; became first lieutenant.

MEMBER: American Political Science Association, National Academy of Public Administration, American Society of Public Administration.

AWARDS, HONORS: National Science Foundation fellow, 1965-67; Louis Brownlow Book Award from the National Academy of Public Administration, 1976, for Presidential Spending Power, and 1988, for Constitutional Dialogues; Aaron B. Wildavsky Award for Lifetime Scholarly Achievement in Public Budgeting from the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management, 1995.

WRITINGS:

President and Congress: Power and Policy, Free Press (New York, NY), 1972.

Presidential Spending Power, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1975.

Confidential Funding: A Study of Unvouchered Accounts: Prepared for the House Budget Committee, Committee on the Budget, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Government Printing Office (Washington, DC), 1977.

The Constitution between Friends: Congress, the President, and the Law, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1978.

The Politics of Shared Power: Congress and the Executive, Congressional Quarterly Press (Washington, DC), 1981, Texas A&M University Press (College Station, TX), 4th edition, 1998.

Constitutional Conflicts between Congress and the President, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1985, 4th edition, 1997.

Constitutional Dialogues: Interpretation as Political Process, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1988.

(Author of foreword) Robert J. Spitzer, The Presidential Veto: Touchstone of the American Presidency, State University of New York (Albany, NY), 1988.

American Constitutional Law, McGraw-Hill (New York, NY), 1990, 6th edition published as American Constitutional Law: Constitutional Structures Separated Powers and Federalism,Carolina Academic Press (Durham, NC), 2005.

(With Neal Devins) Political Dynamics of Constitutional Law, West Publishing (St. Paul, MN), 1992, 3rd edition, 2001.

(Editor with Leonard W. Levy) Encyclopedia of the American Presidency, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1994.

Constitutional Rights: Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, McGraw-Hill (New York, NY), 1995, 6th edition, Carolina Academic Press (Durham, NC), 2005.

Constitutional Structures: Separated Powers and Federalism, McGraw-Hill (New York, NY), 1995, 6th edition, Carolina Academic Press (Durham, NC), 2005.

Presidential War Power, University Press of Kansas (Lawrence, KS), 1995, 2nd edition, 2004.

Congressional Abdication on War and Spending, Texas A&M University Press (College Station, TX), 2000.

Politics and Constitutionalism: The Louis Fisher Connection, edited by Robert J. Spitzer, State University of New York (Albany, NY), 2000.

Religious Liberty in America: Political Safeguards, University Press of Kansas (Lawrence, KS), 2002.

Congress and the Politics of Foreign Policy, Prentice Hall (Upper Saddle River, NJ), 2003.

Congressional Protection of Religious Liberty, Novinka Books (New York, NY), 2003.

The House Appropriations Process, 1789-1993, Novinka Books (New York, NY), 2003.

Military Tribunals, Novinka Books (New York, NY), 2002.

Nazi Saboteurs on Trial: A Military Tribunal and American Law, University Press of Kansas (Lawrence, KS), 2003.

(With Devins) The Democratic Constitution, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2004.

The Politics of Executive Privilege, Carolina Academic Press (Durham, NC), 2004.

Military Tribunals and Presidential Power: American Revolution to the War on Terrorism, University Press of Kansas (Lawrence, KS), 2005.

Contributor of articles to political science, law, and American studies journals, and to newspapers, encyclopedias, and magazines including New Leader, Nation, and Progressive.

SIDELIGHTS: Louis Fisher once told CA, "I . . . flounder about, grabbing . . . [at] the isolated fragments of our governmental system, trying to breathe new life into such discarded disciplines as public law and political economy."

Despite his pessimistic appraisal of those 'discarded disciplines,' Fisher has spent his career becoming one of the nation's foremost authorities on public law and political economy. He has worked for more than three decades with the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, rising to the position of senior specialist. According to the House of Representatives Web site, "Dr. Fisher has been invited to testify before Congress on such issues as executive spending discretion, presidential reorganization authority, the legislative veto, the line-item veto, the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act, executive privilege, executive lobbying, covert spending, the pocket vefto, recess appointments, the budget process, the balanced budget amendment, biennial budgeting, and presidential impoundment powers. . . . He has been invited to speak in Albania, Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, England, Germany, Greece, Holland, Israel, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Taiwan, and Ukraine." Fisher has also worked for the Central and East European Law Initiative of the American Bar Association, helping constitution-writers in Albania, Bulgaria, and Hungary.

Fisher has used his expertise to become a revered author of over 20 political science and law titles. In The Politics of Shared Power: Congress and the Executive, Fisher examines the separation of powers doctrine that factors into all the dealings of the federal government. Fisher writes in the book's preface: "To study one branch of government in isolation from the others is usually an exercise in make-believe. . . . For the most part, an initiative by one branch sets in motion a series of compensatory actions by the other branch—sometimes of a cooperative nature, sometimes antagonistic." In The Politics of Shared Power, Fisher explains in detail the extent of each branch's authority, as well as overlapping powers and historic patterns found in his studies of governmental decision-making. In his next book, Constitutional Conflicts between Congress and the President, Fisher examines instances where the split powers of the executive and legislative branches cause tension. Critics have praised Fisher for writing a book both accessible to nonprofessionals and meaningful to experts.

Working with Leonard W. Levy, Fisher co-edited the four-volume Encyclopedia of the American Presidency. This extensive work contains over 1,000 articles about the executive branch from more than 300 contributors, including well-known figures such as Lou Cannon, Eugene V. Rostow, Gerald Seib, Arthur Schlesinger, and James MacGregor Burns. Of the articles, approximately 200 are biographies, and each presidential election in history is also detailed in a separate article. Many of the other entries reach into less-explored territory—among these are entries on commemorative stamps, presidential yachts, and presidential vacation spots. Karl Helicher wrote in Library Journal that the entries about "quirky, provocative topics, including presidential pets, flag desecration, coattail effects, and dirty tricks, show how deeply ingrained America's highest office is in popular culture." Some of these sundry topics are accompanied by extra features which may be of interest to presidential scholars. A reviewer wrote in Booklist: "Tables, such as the one that accompanies [the article on] Salaries, Executive are eye-openers: while the president's salary has not changed since 1969, those of the vice-president, cabinet members, the chief justice, and members of Congress have all nearly tripled." The combination of features makes the book an in-depth look at the American institution. "The American presidency as an academic discipline and a multidisciplinary approach to the study of American history is outstandingly served by this comprehensive, accessible resource. . . . The wealth of information, authoritatively explained and logically and conveniently presented, thoroughly justifies the price," Helicher wrote.

Where Encyclopedia of the American Presidency explores the presidency as a whole, Presidential War Power is a specific examination of one of the greatest, most controversial responsibilities of the executive office. This book, first published in the midst of a government debate over the War Powers Resolution of 1973, offers "a clear, concise, articulate presentation of the facts and historical context" of the issue, wrote Gordon Silverstein in Political Science Quarterly. Fisher uses examples reaching back to the founding of the United States to build his thought-provoking thesis, namely that "the discretion allowed modern presidents in the use of military power would have come as an unpleasant surprise to the framers of the Constitution," Eliot A. Cohen wrote in Foreign Affairs. Fisher asserts that Congress must take firm action to prevent presidents from overstepping their powers, and maintains that all parties should obey the Constitution, which states that war is not to be waged without Congress' authorization. "Perhaps no other provision of the Constitution has been as flagrantly violated as the war clause. Presidents since Truman have unilaterally taken the nation to war on the assumption that they may do anything they wish with the nation's armed forces," wrote David Gray Adler in American Political Science Review. "Fisher's book constitutes a powerful contribution to the discussion of the war power . . . [and] it illuminates the contemporary relevance of the framers' perspective on the decision to go to war: Congress, and not the president, should make that fateful decision," Adler concluded.

Fisher examines another Constitutional passage that sometimes proves ambiguous in practice: freedom of religion. In Religious Liberty in America: Political Safeguards, Fisher works with the question: how is the government really protecting citizens' right to worship freely? In dealing with this question, the author "surveys the full sweep of U.S. history—from colonial debates about religious liberty to modern judicial, legislative, and executive positions on the status of conscientious objection, compulsory flag salutes, school prayer, Indian religious practices, and the religious use of peyote," wrote John M. Grondelski in First Things. Fisher concludes his survey of history with an answer that many people would not expect. "In this clearly written and stirring challenge to the received wisdom that the Supreme Court is the protector of minority rights from the arbitrary actions of a majoritarian legislature, distinguished constitutional scholar Louis Fisher . . . argues that Congress was often in the forefront of establishing and protecting rights that the High Court neglected or denied," Richard V. Pierard pointed out in History: Review of New Books. Grondelski also found that Religious Liberty in America "opens an important avenue for dialogue."

Fisher returned to the theme of government in wartime with the books Military Tribunals and Nazi Saboteurs on Trial: A Military Tribunal and American Law. Here Fisher examines the use of military tribunals and questions their constitutionality. Nazi Saboteurs on Trial deals specifically with the Supreme Court case of Exparte Quirin, the trial of eight Nazi terrorists who infiltrated America using a submarine during World War II. The saboteurs were ultimately imprisoned or executed, but the "most important and chilling part of the book is its description of institutional politics, including the president's decision to subject the men to trial by military tribunal, the military tribunal's trial and punishment, and the Supreme Court's expedited review of Exparte Quirin," wrote Timothy O. Lenz in Perspectives on Political Science. The Quirin topic has seen renewed interest after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The precedents set in the Quirin case "are connected to questions concerning procedures for military tribunals under the [George W.] Bush administration. A central question is what is permissible executive and judicial authority in cases involving military and other enemy belligerents," Steven Puro commented in Library Journal. "Fisher's knowledgeable analysis is a welcome addition to collections concerning American history and current affairs in public and academic libraries and informs any debate about revived use of such tribunals," Puro concluded. Fisher has completed a sequel, Military Tribunals and Presidential Power: American Revolution to the War on Terrorism, which covers tribunals from George Washington to the present day.

In The Politics of Executive Privilege, Fisher again addresses conflicts rooted in the separation of powers. The issue here is the ongoing debate over the legislative branch's right to access information belonging to the executive branch. Throughout history this ambiguity has resulted in deadlocks and coercion between political figures. In The Politics of Executive Privilege, Fisher presents the history and the facts, and works to make readers aware that when the people's representatives clash, the people are the ones who suffer for it.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Directory of American Scholars, 10th edition, Gale (Detroit, MI), 2001.

Fisher, Louis, The Politics of Shared Power: Congress and the Executive, Congressional Quarterly Press (Washington, DC), 1981, Texas A&M University Press (College Station, TX), 1998.

Writers Directory, 19th edition, St. James Press (New York, NY), 2003.

PERIODICALS

Academic Library Book Review, February, 1994, review of The Politics of Shared Power: Congress and the Executive, p. 31.

American Historical Review, December, 1996, David L. Anderson, review of Presidential War Power, 1647.

American History Illustrated, March-April, 1994, review of Encyclopedia of the American Presidency, p. 21.

American Journal of International Law, October, 1995, Covey T. Oliver, review of Presidential War Power, pp. 865-866.

American Political Science Review, June, 1997, David Gray Adler, review of Presidential War Power, pp. 454-455.

Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, January, 1986, Jay A. Sigler, review of Constitutional Conflicts between Congress and the President, pp. 178-179; November, 1997, William C. Banks, review of Presidential War Power, pp. 223-225; November, 2001, review of Congressional Abdication on War and Spending, p. 192.

Booklist, January 15, 1994, review of Encyclopedia of the American Presidency, p. 956.

Book Report, November, 1987, review of The Politics of Shared Power, p. 53.

Book World, July 2, 1995, review of Presidential War Power, p. 7.

Choice, March, 1979, review of The Constitution between Friends: Congress, President, and the Law, p. 142; April, 1982, review of The Politics of Shared Power, p. 1131; July, 1985, review of Constitutional Conflicts between Congress and the President, p. 1694; May, 1989, review of Constitutional Dialogues: Interpretation as Political Process, p. 60; February, 1994, R.V. Labaree, review of Encyclopedia of the American Presidency, p. 913; September, 1995, J.P. Dunn, review of Presidential War Power, p. 216; September, 1997, review of Constitutional Conflicts between Congress and the President, p. 217; May, 2001, J.H.P. Williams, review of Congressional Abdication on War and Spending, p. 1694.

Congress & the Presidency, spring, 1996, Eileen Burgin, review of Presidential War Power, pp. 57-64.

Ethics, July, 1986, Allan Shoenberger, review of Constitutional Conflicts between Congress and the President, p. 913; January, 1990, Gerald Rosenberg, review of Constitutional Dialogues, p. 458.

First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, March, 2003, John M. Grondelski, review of Religious Liberty in America: Political Safeguards, p. 66.

Foreign Affairs, July, 1995, Eliot A. Cohen, review of Presidential War Power, pp. 136-137.

George Washington Law Review, December, 1988, review of Constitutional Dialogues, p. 397.

Harvard Law Review, November, 1985, review of Constitutional Conflicts between Congress and the President, p. 360; June, 1996, review of Presidential War Power, p. 2129.

History: Review of New Books, winter, 2003, Richard V. Pierard, review of Religious Liberty in America, p. 61.

Journal of American History, December, 1995, James W. Davis, review of Presidential War Power, pp. 1280-1281.

Journal of American Studies, April, 1986, review of Constitutional Conflicts between Congress and the President, p. 121.

Journal of Military History, January, 1996, Russell F. Weigley, review of Presidential War Power, pp. 160-162.

Journal of Politics, May, 1983, review of The Politics of Shared Power, p. 565; February, 1990, Sue Davis, review of Constitutional Dialogues, pp. 290-292.

Law and History Review, fall, 1997, Jonathan Lurie, review of Presidential War Power, pp. 428-430.

Law and Social Inquiry, summer, 1989, review of Constitutional Dialogues, 627.

Legal Information Alert, July-August, 1994, Scott G. Burgh, review of Encyclopedia of the American Presidency, pp. 8-9.

Library Journal, January, 1994, Karl Helicher, review of Encyclopedia of the American Presidency, p. 104; March 15, 1995, William D. Pederson, review of Presidential War Power, p. 88; November 1, 2002, Leo Kriz, review of Religious Liberty in America, p. 95; March 15, 2003, Steven Puro, review of Nazi Saboteurs on Trial: A Military Tribunal and American Law, p. 101.

Marine Corps Gazette, July, 1996, review of Presidential War Power, p. 73.

Naval Law Review, winter, 1986, Daniel W. Dooher, review of Constitutional Conflicts between Congress and the President, pp. 303-305.

New Leader, April 22, 1985, Henry J. Graff, review of Constitutional Conflicts between Congress and the President, pp. 20-22.

New York Times Book Review, May 7, 1995, Theodore Draper, review of Presidential War Power, p. 3; June 11, 1995, review of Presidential War Power, p. 29.

New York University Review of Law & Social Change, June, 1999, Tom M. Fine, review of The Politics of Shared Power, p. 331-356.

Perspective, spring, 1989, review of Constitutional Dialogues, p. 60.

Perspectives on Political Science, summer, 2003, Timothy O. Lenz, review of Nazi Saboteurs on Trial, pp. 176-177.

Political Science Quarterly, summer, 1979, review of The Constitution between Friends, p. 364; winter, 1995, Gordon Silverstein, review of Presidential War Power, pp. 632-633.

Presidential Studies Quarterly, spring, 1990, Ruth P. Morgan, review of Constitutional Dialogues, pp. 429-431; fall, 1995, Donald R. McCoy, review of Encyclopedia of the American Presidency, pp. 803-804, Robert Previdi, review of Presidential War Power, pp. 804-807; June, 2001, Eileen Burgin, review of Congressional Abdication on War and Spending, p. 369; November 1, 2002, Leo Kriz, review of Religious Liberty in America, p. 95.

Public Administration Review, July-August, 1989, Robert G. Vaughn, review of Constitutional Dialogues, pp. 391-392; July, 1993, review of Political Dynamics of Constitutional Law, p. 401.

Reviews in American History, September, 1996, Morris S. Ogul, review of Presidential War Power, pp. 524-528.

Social Science Quarterly, June, 1983, review of The Politics of Shared Power, p. 422.

Suffolk University Law Review, winter, 1990, Robert F. Drinan, review of American Constitutional Law: Constitutional Structures Separated Powers and Federalism, pp. 1183-1188.

Times Literary Supplement, May 24, 1985, review of Constitutional Conflicts between Congress and the President, p. 577; June 30, 1989, Geoffrey Marshall, review of Constitutional Dialogues, pp. 707-708.

University Press Book News, December, 1991, review of Constitutional Conflicts between Congress and the President, p. 28.

Western Political Quarterly, March, 1979, review of The Constitution between Friends, p. 112.

Wilson Library Bulletin, February, 1994, James Rettig, review of Encyclopedia of the American Presidency, p. 80.

Yale Journal of International Law, summer, 1996, Aaron Xavier Fellmeth, review of Presidential War Power, pp. 483-485.

ONLINE

House of Representatives Web site, http://www.house.gov/ (February 29, 1998), "Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution Subcommittee Oversight Hearing regarding 'Congress, the Courts and the Constitution.'"

Texas A&M University Press Web site, http://www.tamu.edu/upress/ (June 29, 2004), review of The Politics of Shared Power.

University Press of Kansas Web site, http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu/ (June 28, 2004), review of Constitutional Conflicts between Congress and the President.