04/17/2023

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)

Each week’s headlines reveal how much power the Supreme Court holds over all our lives. Abortion... guns...the environment...our democracy – The Supermajority dramatizes the explosive impact of these nine justices. It shows how politics shapes the Court, and how the Court shapes the country. It's a revelatory look at America's history, an incisive reflection on our future. Essential reading to understand today's politics.

"Michael Waldman's The Supermajority is nothing less than a public service. With writerly skill and lawyerly authority he has produced a panoramically sweeping and deeply disturbing account of the Supreme Court's lurch to the hard right. Anyone trying to grasp how just nine unelected justices with lifetime tenure could completely upend American life must read this important book."

A call to action as much as it is a history of the Supreme Court . . . carries a strong warning for the conservative justices who thus far have been able to carry the day.

Waldman’s book devastatingly demonstrates that . . . the current Court has made clear that even the judiciary’s legitimacy as the law’s highest expositor cannot be presumed."

"Learned, engaging, fierce - I expect [The Supermajority] to exert huge influence in Democratic Senate and presidential debate about the stakes in 2024 and after."

"A terrific if chilling account of how conservatives hijacked US democracy. . . . Written with the verve of great campaign oratory."

"Today's Supreme Court poses a crisis for American democracy. It has set the country back on voting rights, reproductive rights, gun safety and racial justice, with more damage possibly to come. This compelling book tells the story of this critical moment in the long struggle for a better, more equitable country. It's not a story just for lawyers - it's something every American must know."

Waldman’s book devastatingly demonstrates that . . . the current Court has made clear that even the judiciary’s legitimacy as the law’s highest expositor cannot be presumed."

"Michael Waldman's powerful account of the Supreme Court and how the current supermajority came to be and the dangerous consequences of their decisions is a must-read account of our most important legal institution—troubling, provocative, insightful, and engaging all at the same time."

"Compulsively readable and urgent, The Supermajority briskly details the Supreme Court’s past, while meticulously documenting its impact on our present and future. At every turn, Waldman’s unsparing eye and clear voice illustrate how the Court’s veneer of neutrality has yielded to a cynical political calculus that makes every case a potential landmine for justice and democracy."

"In The Supermajority, Michael Waldman makes a compelling historical, political and legal case against the current Supreme Court. He shows how the conservative Justices who now dominate the Court have already damaged the lives of countless Americans and are poised to wreak more havoc. The Supermajority is a biting analysis and a timely warning."

This compelling book tells the story of this critical moment in the long struggle for a better, more equitable country.”

2023-04-17
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.