Levin, Mark 1957-

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LEVIN, Mark 1957-

(Mark Reed Levin)

PERSONAL: Born 1957. Education: Graduate of Temple University and Temple University Law School.

ADDRESSES: Office—Landmark Legal Foundation, 19415 Deerfield Ave., Ste. 312, Leesburg, VA 20176; fax: (703) 554-6119. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Regnery Publishing, 1 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20001.

CAREER: Chief of staff to U.S. attorney general during Reagan administration; Landmark Legal Foundation, Washington, DC, president; WABC Radio, talk-show host; National Review Online, contributing editor.

AWARDS, HONORS: Ronald Reagan Award, American Conservative Union, 2001.

WRITINGS:

Men in Black: How Judges Are Destroying America, Regnery Publishing (Washington, DC), 2004.

Contributor to National Review Online and other publications.

SIDELIGHTS: Attorney and author Mark Levin serves as president of the Landmark Legal Foundation in Virginia and as host of a conservative political talk show on WABC radio in New York. Levin's bestselling book, Men in Black: How Judges Are Destroying America, takes a hard-line look at the U.S. Supreme Court and how, over several decades since the 1970s, judges have operated in relation to the laws and guidelines set down by the U.S. Constitution. In Levin's opinion, court decisions often have been beyond the bounds of constitutional limits. As he explains, such topics as abortion rights and gay marriage are not eligible for federal legislation under the parameters of the Constitution, and the U.S. Supreme Court should not be allowed to rule on them. Rather, they are state issues.

Due to the highly political nature of Levin's argument, critical opinion polarized with his regard to his book. Reviewing for Slate online, Dahlia Lithwick stated that "the country needs a smart, scholarly book anatomizing for lay readers the arguments against the high court's ever-increasing involvement in political life. But this is not that book." However, Judith Niewiadomski, in a review for Townhall.com, referred to Levin's work as "a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how the Constitution applies today," going on to say that "it also serves as an excellent handbook for wrenching power from the unaccountable oligarchy of the Supreme Court and putting it back into the hands of the people and their elected representatives." Charles Lane, writing for the Washington Post, stated that Levin's book "offers a conversational but uncompromising version of a familiar conservative legal critique: that 'judicial activists' on the bench frequently toss aside black-letter law or constitutional text in favor of their own policy preferences."