Stephen H. Legomsky, "Reimagining the American Union: The Case for Abolishing State Government" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

Exchanges: A Cambridge UP Podcast

Since American president Donald Trump was elected to a second term, it is common to hear citizens, journalists, and public officials distinguish between the laws and leaders of their states and the national government. Those who oppose Trump’s policies with regard to reproductive rights, gun violence, LGBTQ+, education, police, and voting often present state constitutions, courts, laws, culture, and leaders as a bulwark against Trump’s autocratic rule.

But Professor Stephen H. Legomsky sees it differently. His new book, Reimagining the American Union: The Case for Abolishing State Government (Cambridge University Press 2025) argues that – if we care about democracy – we should imagine an America without state government. No longer a union of arbitrarily constructed states, the country would become a union of one American people. Reimagining the American Union understands state government as the root cause of the gravest threats to American democracy. While some of those threats are baked into the Constitution, the book argues that others are the product of state legislatures abusing their powers through gerrymanders, voter suppression, and other less-publicized manipulations that often target African-Americans and other minority voters. Reimagining the American Union interrogates how having national, state and local legislative bodies, taxation, bureaucracy, and regulation wastes taxpayer money and burdens the citizenry. After assessing the supposed benefits of state government, Professor Legomsky argues for a new, unitary American republic with only national and local governments.

Stephen H. Legomsky is the John S. Lehmann University Professor Emeritus at the Washington University School of Law. Professor Legomsky has published scholarly books on immigration and refugee law, courts, and constitutional law. He served in the Obama Administration as Chief Counsel of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and later as Senior Counselor to Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson. He was a member of President-Elect Biden’s transition team, has testified often before Congress, and has worked with state, local, UN, and foreign governments.

Mentioned:

• Cambridge University press is offering a 20% discount here (until October)
• Susan’s NBN interview with Richard Kreitner on Break It Up: Secession, Division, and The Secret History of America’s Imperfect Union
• Jonathan A. Rodden’s Why Cities Lose: The Deep Roots of the Urban-Rural Political Divide (Basic Books 2019)
• Hendrik Hertzberg’s review of Robert A. Dahl’s How Democratic Is the American Constitution (Yale)
• Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court case that overturned the Voting Rights Act of 1965’s pre-clearance requirement for historically discriminating districts