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Robert J. Spitzer is an American political scientist and commentator, and author.

Career

This section of a biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libelous. Find sources: "Robert Spitzer" political scientist – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Spitzer is a distinguished service professor and chair of the political science department at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Cortland. He received his A.B. degree, summa cum laude, from SUNY Fredonia in 1975, his Master's degree from Cornell University in 1978, and his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1980. He has taught at Cortland since 1979, and as a visiting professor at Cornell University since 1988. At Cortland, he has served as chair of the Political Science Department from 1983-1989, 2005-2006, and from 2008 to the present. He served as president of the Presidency Research Group of the American Political Science Association from 2001-2003 and as a member of the New York State Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution from 1986-1990. Spitzer is the author of fourteen books and over five-hundred articles, essays, papers, and op-eds on many topics related to American government. His areas of specialty include the American presidency, and gun politics.

On gun control

Since the 1980s, Spitzer has written books, spoken at public gatherings, written articles for newspapers, and appeared on numerous radio and television shows about gun control. His written work has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Daily News, and the Los Angeles Times. He has appeared on such radio outlets as NPR's Fresh Air With Terry Gross, and on television networks such as MSNBC.

Prior to and since the United States Supreme Court rulings in District of Columbia v. Heller(2008) and McDonald v. Chicago (2010), Spitzer also argues that history and prior law do not support the individualist interpretation of the Second Amendment reflected in these two recent court rulings. Writing since the two cases were handed down, he said that "the Heller and McDonald rulings have established as a matter of law an individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment. But although judges can change the law, they cannot change history, and the historical record largely contradicts the bases for these two recent rulings."

Spitzer is the author of four books on gun control: The Politics of Gun Control, The Right to Bear Arms, Gun Control: A Documentary and Reference Guide,, and along with with Glenn H. Utter, co-authored Encyclopedia of Gun Control and Gun Rights.

In his 2000 book Shots in the Dark, criminologist William J. Vizzard called Spitzer a gun control advocate. Law professor and publisher of The Volokh Conspiracy blog, Eugene Volokh, has described Spitzer as "a strong proponent of gun control."

Published works

Spitzer has researched and written on many topics related to American politics and public policy, including the behavior of American institutions, national elections, the mass media, the Constitution, and New York State politics and policy. His first book, The Presidency and Public Policy, was a revised version of his doctoral dissertation. In it, he argues that presidential success in Congress was shaped by the type of policy proposed by presidents. His book The Presidential Veto is a wide-ranging examination of this under-appreciated presidential power, and it helped spark a new generation of research on the veto. His monograph The Right to Life Movement and Third Party Politics was a close examination of the New York-based Right to Life political party. His book Saving the Constitution from Lawyers: How Legal Education and Law Reviews Distort Constitutional Meaning, argues that legal training serves the practice of law well, but, according to the Harvard Law Review, "presents a sharp critique of the 'wayward constitutional theorizing' published in law journals." Pulitizer Prize winning historian Jack Rakove said of this book, "Nowhere is the gap between pretension and performance more evident than in the realm of constitutional law, and Robert Spitzer explains why." Since 1997, Spitzer has been series editor for the book series on American Constitutionalism published by SUNY Press.

Partial bibliography

• The Presidency and Public Policy (1983)
• The Right to Life Movement and Third Party Politics (1987)
• The Presidential Veto (1988)
• The Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution (1990)
• President and Congress (1993)
• Media and Public Policy (1993)
• The Politics of Gun Control (1995, 1998, 2004, 2008, 2012)
• Politics and Constitutionalism (2000)
• The Right to Bear Arms (2001)
• Essentials of American Politics (2002)
• The Presidency and the Constitution (2005)
• Saving the Constitution from Lawyers (2008)
• Gun Control: A Documentary and Reference Guide (2009)
• Encyclopedia of Gun Control and Gun Rights (with Glenn Utter) (2011)
• We the People: Essentials Edition (co-authored), 9th ed. (2013)

References

1. "News Detail:SUNY Cortland" (Press release). State University of New York College at Cortland. October 24, 2011. Retrieved January 18, 2014.
2. ^ Spitzer, Robert J. (January 7, 2014). "New York's gun laws aren't so tough, historically speaking (Commentary)". Post-Standard. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse Media Group. Retrieved January 13, 2014.
3. "Curriculum Vitae:Robert J. Spitzer". docs.google.com. March 2012. Retrieved January 18, 2014.
4. "Robert J. Spitzer: SUNY Cortland". cortland.edu. State University College of New York at Cortland. June 21, 2005. Retrieved January 18, 2014.
5. Spitzer, Robert; Kucinich, Jackie; McCarthy, Carolyn; Menino, Thomas; Kois, Dan (January 7, 2013). "An Update On Efforts To Prevent Gun Violence" (transcript) (Interview). Interviewed by Diane Rehm. {{cite interview}}: Unknown parameter |callsign= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |city= ignored (|location= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |program= ignored (help)
6. Spitzer, Robert J. (February 27, 2011). "Campuses Just Say 'No' to Guns". The Huffington Post.
7. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-gun-control/2012/12/21/6ffe0ae8-49fd-11e2-820e-17eefac2f939_story.html?hpid=z2
8. http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/president-speed-article-1.1241395
9. http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jan/08/opinion/oe-spitzer8
10. http://www.npr.org/2011/01/27/133247508/the-history-and-growing-influence-of-the-nra?&f=13&sc=tw&cc=freshair
11. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3036677/vp/41050819#41050819
12. Spitzer, Robert J. (October 11, 2013) . "Lost and Found: Researching the Second Amendment" (PDF). Chicago-Kent Law Review. 76 (1). Scholarly Commons. Retrieved January 10, 2014.
13. https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/righting-the-gun-debate LA Review of Books essay
14. Robert J. Spitzer (September 2011). The Politics of Gun Control (5th ed.). Paradigm. Retrieved 2014-01-15.
15. http://www.gvpt.umd.edu/lpbr/subpages/reviews/spitzerarms.htm
16. Spitzer, Robert J. (March 20, 2009). Gun Control: A Documentary and Reference Guide. Greenwood. ISBN 978-0313345661.
17. http://www.greyhouse.com/guncontrol.htm
18. Vizzard, William J. (2000). Shots in the Dark: The Policy, Politics, and Symbolism of Gun Control. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 084769559X. Retrieved January 16, 2014.
19. http://www.volokh.com/2003_05_04_volokh_archive.html
20. http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=poli_fac
21. https://library.villanova.edu/Find/Record/301812/Reviews
22. http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8748701
23. http://www.gvpt.umd.edu/lpbr/reviews/2008/09/saving-constitution-from-lawyers-how.html
24. http://harvardlawreview.org/media/pdf/recent_pubs0209.pdf
25. http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/law/law-general-interest/saving-constitution-lawyers-how-legal-training-and-law-reviews-distort-constitutional-meaning
26. http://www.sunypress.edu/Searchadv.aspx?IsSubmit=true&CategoryID=6882&FIND.x=22&FIND.y=12
27. "Faculty/Staff Detail: Robert Spitzer". cortland.edu. Retrieved January 13 2014. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)

External links

• Faculty/Staff Detail: Robert Spitzer Biography at State University of New York (SUNY) Cortland

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• Living people
• State University of New York at Fredonia alumni
• American academics
• American political scientists
• American political writers
• Gun politics in the United States
• Cornell University alumni
• State University of New York at Cortland faculty