Building a nation, from laissezfaire to the welfare state, constitutional adjudication as an instrument of reform,

An assessment of how the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts is significantly influencing the nation's laws and reinterpreting the Constitution includes in-depth analysis of recent rulings and their implications.

Currie's masterful synthesis of legal analysis and narrative history, gives us a sophisticated and much-needed evaluation of the Supreme Court's first hundred years. "A thorough, systematic, and careful assessment. . . . As a reference work for constitutional teachers, it is a gold mine."—Charles A. Lofgren, Constitutional Commentary

Building a nation, from laissezfaire to the welfare state, constitutional adjudication as an instrument of reform.

From 1953 to 1969, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren brought about many of the proudest achievements of American constitutional law. The Warren declared racial segregation and laws forbidding interracial marriage to be unconstitutional; it expanded the right of citizens to criticize public officials; it held school prayer unconstitutional; and it ruled that people accused of a crime must be given a lawyer even if they can't afford one. Yet, despite those and other achievements, conservative critics have fiercely accused the justices of the Warren Court of abusing their authority by supposedly imposing their own opinions on the nation. As the eminent legal scholars Geoffrey R. Stone and David A. Strauss demonstrate in Democracy and Equality, the Warren Court's approach to the Constitution was consistent with the most basic values of our Constitution and with the most fundamental responsibilities of our judiciary. Stone and Strauss describe the Warren Court's extraordinary achievements by reviewing its jurisprudence across a range of issues addressing our nation's commitment to the values of democracy and equality. In each chapter, they tell the story of a critical decision, exploring the historical and legal context of each case, the Court's reasoning, and how the justices of the Warren Court fulfilled the Court's most important responsibilities. This powerfully argued evaluation of the Warren Court's legacy, in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the end of the Warren Court, both celebrates and defends the Warren Court's achievements against almost sixty-five years of unrelenting and unwarranted attacks by conservatives. It demonstrates not only why the Warren Court's approach to constitutional interpretation was correct and admirable, but also why the approach of the Warren Court was far superior to that of the increasingly conservative justices who have dominated the Supreme Court over the past half-century.

The Supreme Court is a tiny institution that can resolve only a fraction of the constitutional issues generated by the American government. This simple yet startling fact is impossible to deny, but few students of the Court have seriously considered its implications. In Rationing the Constitution, Andrew Coan explains how the Court's limited capacity shapes U.S. constitutional law and argues that the limits of judicial capacity powerfully constrain Supreme Court decision-making on many of the most important constitutional questions, spanning federalism, separation of powers, and individual rights. Examples include the commerce power, presidential powers, Equal Protection, and regulatory takings. The implications for U.S. constitutional law are profound. Lawyers, academics, and social activists pursuing social reform through the courts must consider whether their goals can be accomplished within the constraints of judicial capacity.--

In this authoritative reckoning with the eighteen-year record of the Rehnquist Court, Georgetown law professor Mark Tushnet reveals how the decisions of nine deeply divided justices have left the future of the Court; and the nation; hanging in the balance. Many have assumed that the chasm on the Court has been between its liberals and its conservatives. In reality, the division was between those in tune with the modern post-Reagan Republican Party and those who, though considered to be in the Court's center, represent an older Republican tradition. As a result, the Court has modestly promoted the agenda of today's economic conservatives, but has regularly defeated the agenda of social issues conservatives; while paving the way for more radically conservative path in the future.