Review by Choice Review
Waldman (law, NYU) provides an effective primer on the current Supreme Court, placing the Court in its larger historical context but emphasizing the recent events that have led to the creation of a six-three supermajority of conservative justices. The book is entertaining as well as illuminating, with astounding facts, revealing quotations, and refreshingly astute political judgments. The author not only provides a larger institutional framework for understanding judicial politics but also describes the personal and political facets of Supreme Court relationships, filling the gap since Jeffrey Toobin's popular The Nine (2007) and updating Ian Millhiser's dissection of the Roberts court's jurisprudence in The Agenda (2021). Especially valuable are chapters on the most shocking decisions of 2022 (on guns, abortion, and climate controls) and the preliminary discussions of several 2023 cases on race and religion decided post-publication. The single best source for understanding the current Supreme Court, the book succeeds admirably in its overtly political purpose: educating citizens on the threats posed by the new "supermajority" and sounding a wake-up call to liberals to rethink this critical institution. Summing Up: Essential. Undergraduates through faculty; professionals; general readers. --A. B. Cochran, emeritus, Agnes Scott College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
The Supreme Court has always been contentious and its rulings divisive. Once, the Supreme Court was virtually toothless; how did it become a coequal branch of the government, whose decisions severely impact the daily lives of all Americans? Waldman traces the historical roots of the court, from its establishment with the adoption of the Constitution and its early weakness to its eventual major impact on modern America. With meticulous attention to detail, Waldman leads up to the modern era, explaining how the court came to be dominated by a radically conservative supermajority of six to three. He explains how a variety of conservative decisions have dramatically reduced the scope of civil rights, specifically West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency and Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (which notoriously overturned abortion rights). He then looks to the future, speculating on how possible decisions by this conservative court will further divide the country and damage American democracy. Waldman's detail is difficult to slog through at times, but this is a cautionary tale that shouldn't be ignored.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Waldman (The Fight to Vote), president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, delivers a persuasive analysis of the Supreme Court's 2021--2022 term and how "decades of organized politics" brought it to a "point of judicial extremism and overreach." During the cultural revolutions of the 1950s and '60s, chief justice Earl Warren led the court's efforts to expand and protect civil rights, leading to such landmark decisions as Brown v. Board of Education and Miranda v. Arizona, but also exacerbating tensions between the right and the left as the latter became "enamored of litigation as a driver of social change and came to hold the Supreme Court itself in near-religious reverence." Eventually, Waldman writes, "intense divisions within Congress spread to judicial nominations and came to be the central fact in how American courts were comprised." Among more recent rulings, Waldman highlights 2010's Citizens United, which "remade American politics" to give more influence to the wealthy, and Shelby County v. Holder, which significantly weakened the Voting Rights Act. He also delves into the links between the Federalist Society and the three conservative justices appointed by Donald Trump, and takes note of the historical precedents behind the 2022 Dobbs leak, which contributed to a "tense, accusatory, and suspicious" atmosphere within the court as it released other consequential and controversial rulings on gun rights and environmental regulations. Brisk yet detailed, this is a valuable overview of how America's highest court became such a lightning rod. (June)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Alarming exposé of the Supreme Court's "hard right supermajority." Along with legislatures stripping minorities of civil and voting rights and gerrymandering safe districts, the Supreme Court, writes NYU School of Law scholar Waldman, is among the foremost "threats to American democracy." While in office, Donald Trump installed three Supreme Court justices who have transformed the moderate Roberts court into an extreme right-wing institution that, in just three days in June 2022, overturned Roe v. Wade, forbade federal agencies from addressing climate change, and "radically loosened curbs on guns, amid an epidemic of mass shootings." These actions, Waldman fears, are just the beginning of a struggle over the meaning of the Constitution--a struggle fought, by his reckoning, three times before, most recently in rulings concerning civil rights after Brown v. Board of Education. The current court is focused on "originalism," which involves trying to "discern exactly what the Founders were thinking." However, Waldman urges, the Founders assumed that the Constitution would be frequently amended to reflect social change. One great reform came in the 19th century to extend the power of the Bill of Rights to state-level as well as federal actions. Today, with the sullenly taciturn Clarence Thomas and his election-denying spouse at the center of the court, stripping rights, Waldman charges, is the order of the day. In an institution with almost no ethical controls, "Thomas managed to run afoul of the few existing rules that govern conduct." Waldman counsels a program to sidestep the Supreme Court not by packing it, as some have urged, but instead by strengthening lower courts (Justice John Roberts himself having called for 79 new federal judges), limit court tenure to 18 years instead of a lifetime appointment, and concentrate on building a progressive legislative branch. A damning account of a Supreme Court gone wildly activist in shredding the Constitution. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
