Elie Mystal (Allow Me to Retort) takes readers through some of the worst laws in the United States in Bad Law, which is at times infuriating. Mystal tackles topics such as gun control, abortion, immigration, and more, and even the most politically savvy readers are likely to learn something. For example, the Hyde Amendment has been attached to every congressional omnibus spending bill since 1976. It prohibits using federal health care funds for abortions and disproportionately impacts low-income and impoverished people. Continuing to attach this amendment to annual spending bills, Mystal asserts, is an intentional choice that "should be challenged every single year... until it is repealed."
Bad Law is full of meticulous details about the intricacies of how lawmakers shape the country. Mystal is not shy about interjecting his own opinions about laws and lawmakers, humanizing what could otherwise be a dry and inaccessible subject. Comparing living in the United States to a "first-person shooter game because of the law," Mystal describes a legal system that promotes "bigotry and discrimination, the rapacious accumulation and hoarding of wealth, and vigilante justice."
Mystal ensures readers are aware that both parties are to blame for some of these bad laws. Notably, the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (often called simply "the Crime Bill") is a primary cause of mass incarceration in the United States, and was a proud moment for Bill Clinton's Democratic administration.
Ending with suggested solutions and a call to vote, Bad Law is an approachable work of political science, recommended for readers of Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow and Kristin Kobes Du Mez's Jesus and John Wayne. --Alyssa Parssinen, freelance reviewer and former bookseller