The American Congress: The First Branch.

MIKVA, Abner J; Patti B. Saris [Ruth Bader Ginsburg].

$6,500.00

Item Number: 146582

New York: Franklin Watts, 1983.

First edition of this comprehensive view of the history and function of Congress. Octavo, original boards, illustrated with black and white photographs. Association copy, inscribed by co-author Abner J. Mikva on the front free endpaper, “To Ruth and Mary, Friends, inspirations and nice people! Ab Mikva.” His obituary in the New York Times remembers Mikva.” From the library of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Arguably the most famous Supreme Court Justice in American history, lawyer and jurist Ruth Bader Ginsburg served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. Popularly dubbed “the Notorious R.B.G.” (a play on the name of famed 90s rapper The Notorious B.I.G.), Ginsburg was responsible for some of the most eventful legal decisions of the past half-century. When she was nominated by President Bill Clinton in 1993 to replace retiring justice Byron White, Ginsburg became both the first Jewish woman and the second woman to serve on the Court, after Sandra Day O’Connor. Ginsburg was born and grew up in Brooklyn, New York, earned degrees at Cornell University and Columbia Law School, and began her career as a professor at Rutgers Law School and Columbia Law School, teaching civil procedure as one of the few women in her field. She spent much of her early legal career as an advocate for gender equality and women’s rights, winning many arguments before the Supreme Court and, in 1972, co-founded the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union which participated in more than 300 gender discrimination cases by 1974. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where she served until her appointment to the Supreme Court in 1993. During her tenure as associate justice of the Supreme Court, Ginsburg received increasing attention for her fiery and passionate dissents that reflected liberal views of the law. She authored several important majority opinions related to gender discrimination, voting rights, and affirmative action in cases such as United States v. Virginia (1996) which struck down the Virginia Military Institute’s male-only admissions policy as violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Olmstead v. L.C. (1999) in which the Court ruled that mental illness is a form of disability covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, Inc. (2000) in which the Court held that residents have standing to seek fines for an industrial polluter that affected their interests and that is able to continue doing so. In 2002, Ginsburg was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, she was named one of Forbes’ 100 Most Powerful Women in 2009, and one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2015. Her powerful and fiery dissent in the 2013 Supreme Court case Shelby County v. Holder, in which she argued against the majority’s decision to strike down key provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, emphasizing the continued need for its protections against racial discrimination in voting, earned her the nickname “The Notorious R.B.G.” – a moniker she came to embrace which has since become a celebration of her important legal career and legacy. Widely regarded as one of the most remarkable women in American history, Ginsburg redefined and transcended the traditional role of Supreme Court justice, ascending to the status of intergenerational feminist pop culture icon. In near fine condition with some sunning to the spines, front and rear panels. Cover design by Meg Ann Moorhead. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box by the Harcourt Bindery. An exceptional association.

Abner Mikva was a federal judge and one of Justice Ginsburg’s colleagues. "Mr. Mikva represented the Chicago area in Congress for nearly nine years, became the chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia --- widely regarded as second in importance only to the Supreme Court --- and concluded his federal service with a stint as White House counsel under President Bill Clinton during a tumultuous period in the executive branch. He had also been a mentor to President Obama and to Justice Elena Kagan of the Supreme Court."