American Government and Politics Today - Texas Edition, 2011-2012

AMERICAN GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS TODAY, TEXAS EDITION, 2011-2012 encourages students to experience the excitement that comes with being an engaged and informed citizen and provides tools for getting involved and stories of real young people who have made a difference and impacted our political system. Schmidt's streamlined presentation of content helps students stay focused on what is most important. In addition, Questions to Consider, which appear in the chapter opener to help students target their reading, are now revisited in the chapter summary. The addition of Texas authors Maxwell, Crain and Santos, as well as ten more chapters to the Table of Contents, offers substantial coverage of Texas politics.

Lynne E. Ford is Associate Provost for Curriculum and Academic Administration and professor of political science at the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina. She received her B.A. from The Pennsylvania State University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in government and political behavior from the University of Maryland-College Park. Ford's teaching and research interests include women and politics, elections and voting behavior, political psychology, and civic engagement. She has written articles on women in state legislatures, the under-representation of women in political office in the American South, and work-family policy in the United States. She has also authored WOMEN AND POLITICS: THE PURSUIT OF EQUALITY and THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WOMEN AND AMERICAN POLITICS. Ford served as department chair for eight years and she has led a number of campus-wide initiatives including general education reform, faculty compensation, and civic engagement. Adolfo Santos is the chair of the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Houston-Downtown and Associate Professor of Political Science. Dr. Santos received a Ph.D. from the University of Houston in 1998. He is the author of DO MEMBERS OF CONGRESS REWARD THEIR FUTURE EMPLOYERS?: EVALUATING THE REVOLVING DOOR SYNDROME. He also writes about Hispanic representation in the U.S. Congress and the Texas legislature. Mack C. Shelley, II is a professor of political science and statistics at Iowa State University. After receiving his bachelor's degree from American University in Washington, DC, he went on to graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he received a master's degree in economics and a Ph.D. in political science. He arrived at Iowa State in 1979. From 1993 to 2002 he served as elected co-editor of the Policy Studies Journal. Shelley has also published numerous articles, books, and monographs on public policy, including The Permanent Majority: The Conservative Coalition in the United States Congress; Biotechnology And The Research Enterprise: A Guide to the Literature (with William F. Woodman and Brian J. Reichel); American Public Policy: The Contemporary Agenda (with Steven G. Koven and Bert E. Swanson); and Quality Research in Literacy and Science Education: International Perspectives and Gold Standards (with Larry Yore and Brian Hand). Steffen W. Schmidt is a professor of political science at Iowa State University. He grew up in Colombia, South America, and has studied in Colombia, Switzerland, and France. He has a B.A. from Rollins College and obtained his Ph.D. from Columbia University, New York, in public law and government. Dr. Schmidt has published 14 books and over 130 articles in scholarly journals and is the recipient of numerous prestigious teaching prizes, including the Amoco Award for Lifetime Career Achievement in Teaching and the Teacher of the Year award. He is a pioneer in the use of web-based and real-time video courses and is a member of the American Political Science Association's section on Computers and Multimedia. He is known as "Dr. Politics" for his extensive commentary on U.S. politics in U.S. and international media. He is a weekly blogger for Gannett, and comments on CNN en Espanol and Univision as well as WNYC, New York. Dr. Schmidt is on Facebook (SteffenWSchmidt) and Twitter (DrPolitics). William Earl Maxwell is a professor emeritus at San Antonio College, where he has taught courses in U.S. and Texas government since 1971. Throughout his career Maxwell has focused on innovative teaching techniques and improving the teaching and learning environments for students. As part of that effort, in 1975 Maxwell co-authored UNDERSTANDING TEXAS POLITICS, his first text on Texas government. He also co-authored such texts as POLITICS IN TEXAS and THE CHALLENGE OF TEXAS POLITICS: TEXT WITH READINGS. He completed his undergraduate and graduate work at Sam Houston State University. A thirty-five year veteran instructor of political science, Ernest Crain specializes in political party competition, comparative state politics, and Texas public policy. Crain co-authored UNDERSTANDING TEXAS POLITICS, POLITICS IN TEXAS, THE CHALLENGE OF TEXAS POLITICS, and four editions of INTRODUCTION TO TEXAS POLITICS. Crain received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Texas in Austin. Barbara A. Bardes is professor emerita of political science at the University of Cincinnati. She received her B.A. and M.A. from Kent State University and her Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati. She served as a faculty member in political science and dean of Mundelein College at Loyola University of Chicago. In 1993, she was appointed dean of Raymond Walters College of the University of Cincinnati, where she served until 2003. She returned to the political science department, where she held the position of graduate director before retiring. Bardes has written articles on public and foreign policy, and women and politics. She also has co-authored Declarations of Independence: Women and Political Power In 19th Century American Novels; Thinking About Public Policy; Public Opinion: Measuring The American Mind; and American Government And Politics Today.