A Supreme Court unlike any other The deepening divide between the justices and the people

McMahon (Trinity College) offers a compelling argument that the membership of the Supreme Court has become increasingly distant from American citizenry in the last several decades. The book posits three primary reasons, all based around the politics and procedures of the judicial nomination process, that explain the increasing divide between the Supreme Court and the citizens that it, in theory, serves. This divide is described as the "democracy gap," which negatively impacts the court's legitimacy. The book is organized into four parts, three of which discuss the reasons why the "democracy gap" has increased; the fourth section offers various conclusions. Simply, the reasons are that Republican presidents who have failed to earn the approval of the majority of the electorate are, with increasing frequency, the ones to nominate justices; the decreasingly representative nature of the appointees along the lines of class, geography, religion, and educational backgrounds; and the impact of the politics of the Supreme Court on presidential and senatorial campaigns. The book's research is meticulous, its argument is persuasive, and its importance is politically imperative. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels. --Tobias T. Gibson, Westminster College

McMahon (political science, Trinity Coll.; Nixon's Court) presents a well-researched, thoroughly annotated examination of the change in the U.S. Supreme Court's composition over time. Broken into historical timelines with context, the striking contrast between Antonin Scalia's career (once held as the needle of conservatism) and today's bench (including three Trump nominees) becomes obvious. The research is supported by a profusion of charts that demonstrate how nomination criteria and political platform loyalty have changed over time, moving justices farther away from the beliefs of their constituents and communities. The book makes it easy to understand the mood of the country in any given era, as it is clarified by the inclusion of relevant cases, headlines, and election results. The visuals when describing the ramifications of a numerical minority are especially effective at demonstrating how a small group of people can wield vast political influence. VERDICT McMahon's exemplary ability to explain the changes in party politics, ideologies, and political practices helps readers to visualize the monstrous philosophical gap between the judges and their electorate. This confirms his thesis that judicial independence is creating judicial isolation, to the detriment of the country. The book will appeal to voracious consumers of political thought and current events.--Tina Panik

Analysis of a U.S. Supreme Court far removed from other instruments and tenets of democratic governance. Political scientist McMahon opens with the most consequential single Supreme Court decision in our time: Dobbs, which overturned Roe v. Wade, undoing "a constitutional right that had been in the law books for nearly fifty years." The decision scarcely elicited comment from the ruling majority and barely any dissent. The decision, notes the author, was another sign of a growing "democracy gap" between the Court and other democratic institutions that lend it legitimacy. The will of the people was once an intangible institution that held some weight in juridical decision-making; now the Court comprises a majority of "numerical minority justices," appointed by presidents and confirmed by legislators who represent a minority of the American population. Moreover, writes McMahon, the Court, the product of heavy vetting by the archconservative Federalist Society, is representative of "a small sliver--more like a tiny speck--of [an] America that is closed off to the vast majority." Given all this, it is small wonder that the Court's decisions are so increasingly narrow in whom they reward and so onerous to so many ordinary people. Arguing from the general premise that the Court has little or no democratic legitimacy, McMahon suggests amendments to the Constitution that would reduce lifetime appointments to term appointments, and he floats the idea that court packing might have its uses, such as affording "presidents additional opportunities to choose from outside the judicial monastery." Both measures, McMahon urges, would help depoliticize a Court that promises to be in the sway of the hard right for a generation to come. A cleareyed, depressingly convincing view of a Supreme Court that has abandoned the Republic for other masters. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.