THE REHNQUIST COURT

JUDICIAL ACTIVISM ON THE RIGHT

edited by Herman Schwartz ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2002

Broaden the powers of the police, attack women’s right to choose, erode a few personal freedoms, and crown a right-wing president against the will of the people, and voilà: “Ronald Reagan’s efforts to reshape the American judiciary have succeeded.”

So writes editor Schwartz in this full-bore, peppery assault on the current Supreme Court by a team of 15 discontented lawyers, scholars, and journalists. That the Court put George W. Bush into the White House is, in these contributors’ estimation, but one of its manifold sins, though that’s a big one—for, as Schwartz warns, “A well-established conventional wisdom is that the Supreme Court follows the election returns. Which is to say, it does not too often or too egregiously defy the demonstrated will of the people—not for fear of being voted off the bench but for the less immediate, less tangible, less definable fear of a damaging loss of institutional power or influence, owing to a Congress or a population, or both, too often confounded.” And, adds legal scholar John P. Mackenzie, the Court in so doing committed a scandal that has been too little remarked on: In its opinion, the justices remarked, “Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities”—in other words, the Court set no precedent, an “unthinkable” failure “unknown in Supreme Court annals.” Other of the contributors address the Court’s perceived failings, born of the very judicial activism that so many conservatives denounce, in matters such as abortion rights (“The surprise here is not that we are still fighting the same war,” writes Susan Estrich, “but that after so much time with the Rehnquist Court, with six of its members appointed by Republicans, we haven’t lost it yet”), the rights of suspects and the condemned, the rights of free-speech advocates and political dissidents, and just about everything else under its purview.

Expect worse, the authors warn, should Bush get a shot at appointing another justice. Those inclined to think that the present judiciary is awful enough will find plenty of ammunition in these pages.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2002

ISBN: 0-8090-8073-7

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Hill and Wang/Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2002

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION