For today and cspan 2 booktv so make it all proud just to give a brief sense of how we do things in the next 15 minutes. Im going to introduce just an art. Make sure thereve book will have a discussion. I think the title of this panel is rebuilding or evolution informally in my mind. It is detroit and austin that the beginning and end of all things. That appeals more to my grammatic sense. So jeff kerr is the author of austin texas history. The first was austin, texas then and now. The next was republic of austin. On the most recent one of the reason we are here this morning is seat of empire the embattled birth of austin, texas, which is a history of the founding of boston and the battle in the republic of texas over by this capital would need. Jeff also raised a regular history and he is practicing pediatric urologist at the same time. If we have and the emergence sees. The author will take care of them. Mark binelli is the author of vincennes msi, contributing editor to relate to an
In the constitution, and so theres an expectation that speakers are there to represent the house of representatives with the senate and the American People. The practical matter the speaker is responsible for ensuring that the house operates correctly, ensuring that legislation is enacted, helping to develop the agenda, interacting with the president , interacting with the American People, and ensuring that in general the house is working the will of the people. Could anyone be the speaker of house . You have to be a member of the house for . Technically you do not. The house shall choose it speaker. So in theory anyone can run for speaker of the health. As a practical matter its always been a member of the house of representatives, but that is not a limitation that the constitution imposes on the selection of the speaker. How partisan is the post . Thats a great question. I would say this, that the partisanship of the office of speaker has changed over time. From the very beginning th
Louisville Free Public Library in louisville, kentucky, is next on booktv. [applause] thanks a lot, greg. Thank you. Very grateful to be in this this beautiful library. Thanks to you all for coming out on a fashionty evening. I do hope that well mostly have a conversation, think about questions you might want to ask, because im speaking ill try to keep my prepared remarks short, read three short passages from the book, and then lets talk about fdr. My grandmother was a schoolteacher. She taught music in the detroit Public Schools for many years, all through the 30s, 40s and 50s. Dedicated new deal democrat. And she said, jim, i want to tell you about a great man, a heroic man who had polio. As an adult. Now, i knew about polio, because id had the sugar cube, right . The vaccine. I knew what that was about, and it was scary to think about a grown man who had polio. She told me how he had to struggle across a stage to get to a podium, walking with canes all by himself. And this was an ac
We as a nation spend the best part of a year selecting our president. Many of the Founding Fathers fought against creating the vice presidency, and people have regarded ate political graveyard. The system has produced some worthy Vice President s, but at best, its a compromise, and at worst, its a game of who left with the nations destiny. Ben franklin when the constitution was written said we should refer to the Vice President as a superfluous excellency. [ cheers ] hail to the chief i always think of John Nance Garner and his quote that it wasnt worth a bucket of warm spit, and thats cleaning up what he said. If you ask the American People what does the Vice President do . I think you would probably get a shrug of the shoulders. You might even be asked who is the Vice President . Lets do it. I think when we were formed as a nation and the constitution was shaped, not an awful lot of thought was given to the vice presidency. The office as a general proposition, if you look back over t
Incredible book quest for the presidency the storied and surprising history of president ial campaigns in america from university of nebraska, press and this is one of these books that is welcoming to scholars and for armchair historians and for general readers of all sorts one of the things that we do together, one of the really only unifying things we do together. All of us as a country is a president ial election every four years. We all have a stake in those of us are voting age that is in terms of where our country is going. And it distills the destiny of the United States into a single human being and index and in essence for range of ideas. This has been a feature of this country since the presidency of George Washington and bob real has pulled together a comprehensive history of every single president ial election in one readable volume. This is the word surprising in the subtitle is not frivolous even president ial scholars, i think are going to find details in here that they