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Justice on the Brink: The Death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Rise of Amy Coney Barrett, and Twelve Months That Transformed the Supreme Court
The gripping story of the Supreme Court’s transformation from a measured institution of law and justice into a highly politicized body dominated by a right-wing supermajority, told through the dramatic lens of its most transformative year, by the Pulitzer Prize–winning law columnist for The New York Times
“A dazzling feat . . . meaty, often scintillating and sometimes scary . . . Greenhouse is a virtuoso of SCOTUS analysis.”— The Washington Post
In Justice on the Brink, legendary journalist Linda Greenhouse gives us unique insight into a court under stress, providing the context and brilliant analysis readers of her work in The New York Times have come to expect. In a page-turning narrative, she recounts the twelve months when the court turned its back on its legacy and traditions, abandoning any effort to stay above and separate from politics. With remarkable clarity and deep institutional knowledge, Greenhouse shows the seeds being planted for the court’s eventual overturning of Roe v. Wade, expansion of access to guns, and unprecedented elevation of religious rights in American society. Both a chronicle and a requiem, Justice on the Brink depicts the struggle for the soul of the Supreme Court, and points to the future that awaits all of us.
“A dazzling feat . . . meaty, often scintillating and sometimes scary . . . Greenhouse is a virtuoso of SCOTUS analysis.”— The Washington Post
In Justice on the Brink, legendary journalist Linda Greenhouse gives us unique insight into a court under stress, providing the context and brilliant analysis readers of her work in The New York Times have come to expect. In a page-turning narrative, she recounts the twelve months when the court turned its back on its legacy and traditions, abandoning any effort to stay above and separate from politics. With remarkable clarity and deep institutional knowledge, Greenhouse shows the seeds being planted for the court’s eventual overturning of Roe v. Wade, expansion of access to guns, and unprecedented elevation of religious rights in American society. Both a chronicle and a requiem, Justice on the Brink depicts the struggle for the soul of the Supreme Court, and points to the future that awaits all of us.
336 pages, Hardcover
Published November 9, 2021
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February 12, 2023
Of the three branches of government, I know the least about the judiciary. It makes sense. For one, their work is highly detailed and all about "the law." For another, their work is mostly cloaked in secrecy.
This, then, is a helpful book to learn more about the Supreme Court, where it's been, and where it finds itself. Alarmingly, where it finds itself is in much the same place as the rest of the country. (Hint: It rhymes with "Trouble")
This has countless causes, chief of which is Trump's three appointments, helped along by Mitch McConnell, a man who history will remember as no friend to the Constitution or the United States he has pledged to serve and reneged on serving. (Sorry, Mitch, but serving party over country doesn't cut it.)
Personalities come to the fore in this book, but not in all nine cases. If there's a villain, it is not Thomas (more the eccentric, crackpot uncle upstairs, he) but Alito, a man who is pretty blatant about where he stands (set your GPS to 23 Fox "News" Lane).
Roberts has tried but failed to save the Court from evolving into Alito-style "partisans in robes" but, in his way, has himself contributed to the cause by working hard to undermine voting rights and giving religions preferential treatment.
In fact, under this 6-3 Conservative court, we are drifting back to a theocracy such as we had in Puritan New England. The Christian right has outdone itself bringing case after case after case to the court to lap up the new, preferential treatment that blows separation of church and state out of the water. Of course, despite its political activity, no religion is begging to lose its tax exemptions. (And this won't be the only example of irony you will come across.)
Gorsuch? He's the Ted Cruz of the Court, meaning he is little liked by any of his brethren. He relishes going after other justices -- especially Roberts -- in what can only be called, um, sarcastic dissents.
As for Kavanaugh, his opinions often wrestle with logic -- an opponent out of his opinion's weight class. In one case, Kavanaugh even contradicts his own opinion on a similar case earlier on. (Whoops.)
If there's a hero of the crew, it's Sotomayor. Eloquent, a spokesperson for the people -- especially minorities. The new right-heavy court seems to take special pleasure in finding ways to rule against the little guy.
As for Breyer, he's decided to follow Ginsburg's precedent and go for it. Not retire in this brief, shining chance, but to risk serving until he's had his fill or dies -- either of which is likely to occur under a Senate returned to Trumpublicans' graces. (That is, if voters decide to blame Democrats for the inconveniences they've had to countenance due to this pandemic, and there's every indication they will.)
*Editor's Note: Since this review, of course, Breyer did indeed, learn from Ginsburg error by retiring while Democrats held both the White House and the Senate. As poor Ruth found out, power is a difficult thing to give up once you've sipped the ambrosia, but alas, all it did in her case is shift power to the New Puritans of the Far Right.
For laymen like me, a very doable book by a capable writer who has been following the Court for decades. Revealing, is what it is. Sometimes in ways I wish it wasn't.
This, then, is a helpful book to learn more about the Supreme Court, where it's been, and where it finds itself. Alarmingly, where it finds itself is in much the same place as the rest of the country. (Hint: It rhymes with "Trouble")
This has countless causes, chief of which is Trump's three appointments, helped along by Mitch McConnell, a man who history will remember as no friend to the Constitution or the United States he has pledged to serve and reneged on serving. (Sorry, Mitch, but serving party over country doesn't cut it.)
Personalities come to the fore in this book, but not in all nine cases. If there's a villain, it is not Thomas (more the eccentric, crackpot uncle upstairs, he) but Alito, a man who is pretty blatant about where he stands (set your GPS to 23 Fox "News" Lane).
Roberts has tried but failed to save the Court from evolving into Alito-style "partisans in robes" but, in his way, has himself contributed to the cause by working hard to undermine voting rights and giving religions preferential treatment.
In fact, under this 6-3 Conservative court, we are drifting back to a theocracy such as we had in Puritan New England. The Christian right has outdone itself bringing case after case after case to the court to lap up the new, preferential treatment that blows separation of church and state out of the water. Of course, despite its political activity, no religion is begging to lose its tax exemptions. (And this won't be the only example of irony you will come across.)
Gorsuch? He's the Ted Cruz of the Court, meaning he is little liked by any of his brethren. He relishes going after other justices -- especially Roberts -- in what can only be called, um, sarcastic dissents.
As for Kavanaugh, his opinions often wrestle with logic -- an opponent out of his opinion's weight class. In one case, Kavanaugh even contradicts his own opinion on a similar case earlier on. (Whoops.)
If there's a hero of the crew, it's Sotomayor. Eloquent, a spokesperson for the people -- especially minorities. The new right-heavy court seems to take special pleasure in finding ways to rule against the little guy.
As for Breyer, he's decided to follow Ginsburg's precedent and go for it. Not retire in this brief, shining chance, but to risk serving until he's had his fill or dies -- either of which is likely to occur under a Senate returned to Trumpublicans' graces. (That is, if voters decide to blame Democrats for the inconveniences they've had to countenance due to this pandemic, and there's every indication they will.)
*Editor's Note: Since this review, of course, Breyer did indeed, learn from Ginsburg error by retiring while Democrats held both the White House and the Senate. As poor Ruth found out, power is a difficult thing to give up once you've sipped the ambrosia, but alas, all it did in her case is shift power to the New Puritans of the Far Right.
For laymen like me, a very doable book by a capable writer who has been following the Court for decades. Revealing, is what it is. Sometimes in ways I wish it wasn't.
January 24, 2022
Justice on the Brink: The Death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Rise of Amy Coney Barrett, and Twelve Months That Transformed the Supreme Court was a riveting analysis of the Supreme Court from July 2020 through July 2021 by Linda Greenhouse, Pulitzer Prize winner for her Supreme Court coverage in The New York Times. The author notes that it was her pandemic project as she wrote an account of the term as she processed it day to day over a period of a year and attempted to answer the question whether the court still belonged to Chief Justice John Roberts after sixteen years or was this the dawn of the Trump court.
This is quite good in detailing the personalities of those on the court and the cases as they made their way to the Supreme Court during the tumultuous year of the pandemic bringing forth key cases not only pertaining to Voter's Rights, reproductive rights, and Second Amendment rights, but also additional rulings concerning mask mandates, vaccination mandates, as well as restrictions on the gathering of non-household members.
It was interesting to see the various personalities of the justices and the influence on the court proceedings and rulings as brought out by the author:
This was an interesting book that showed a lot of the inner machinations of the supreme court during that first year when three newly appointed conservative justices were all on the supreme court during a global pandemic and following the death of the court's leading liberal and the replacement of this icon by Amy Coney Barrett in less than five weeks. Linda Greenhouse's final assessment should give us all encouragement as she concludes that while it wasn't the term that the conservatives were hoping for buy yet it wasn't the term that the liberals had feared. What happens remains to be seen.
This is quite good in detailing the personalities of those on the court and the cases as they made their way to the Supreme Court during the tumultuous year of the pandemic bringing forth key cases not only pertaining to Voter's Rights, reproductive rights, and Second Amendment rights, but also additional rulings concerning mask mandates, vaccination mandates, as well as restrictions on the gathering of non-household members.
It was interesting to see the various personalities of the justices and the influence on the court proceedings and rulings as brought out by the author:
"Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, named to the court by the same president within eighteen months of each other, were now in very different places: Gorsuch the unrestrained firebrand who poured rhetorical gasoline on Alito's smoldering anger, Kavanaugh seemingly intent on persuading the world that he really had looked at all sides of every question before embracing the conservative position he had started out with."
"Gorsuch presumably had his reasons for tweaking the chief justice persistently and in public; Justice Scalia had done the same thing for years. . . . . But Roberts had his own reasons for incrementalism--or for what looked like incrementalism. As he had seen William Rehnquist do with great effectiveness, Roberts saw utility in planting seeds that could germinate and grow when the climate--and the court--was favorable. It could take a while, but unlike Gorsuch, Roberts was patient. By the time the ultimate goal was in view, he would have managed to move the law so far down the road that the slightest touch could push it over the finish line. The end result would appear to the public as all but inevitable."
This was an interesting book that showed a lot of the inner machinations of the supreme court during that first year when three newly appointed conservative justices were all on the supreme court during a global pandemic and following the death of the court's leading liberal and the replacement of this icon by Amy Coney Barrett in less than five weeks. Linda Greenhouse's final assessment should give us all encouragement as she concludes that while it wasn't the term that the conservatives were hoping for buy yet it wasn't the term that the liberals had feared. What happens remains to be seen.
August 23, 2023
/Justice on the Brink: The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Rise of Amy Coney Barrett, and Twelve Months that Transformed the Supreme Court/, Linda Greenhouse, 2021, 300 pages, Dewey 347.7326090512, ISBN 9780593447932
Clear, engaging, eye-opening. A year in the Supreme Court, 2020.06.30 through 2021.07.01. And, lots about the legal and political background. A good introduction to the major changes in many laws the Roberts court has made and is making: Require girls and women to bear children against their will. Require the government to give money to churches. Exempt anyone who professes a government-recognized religion from laws everyone must obey. Permit people in power who profess religion, to deny other people's rights, in ways that would be impermissible if the boss, owner, or official did not profess religion. Roll back voting rights, civil rights, and the rights of the accused. Erase restrictions on armed people roaming at large (but not in the Supreme Court building). Roll back environmental protections. Enshrine property rights. Slash government's power to regulate. Further curtail labor rights. Greenhouse gives us some glimpses behind the scenes, the justices' arguments among themselves that they don't share with the public. pp. 128-129.
With Ginsburg alive, the court was 5 justices who always want to privilege the privileged and oppress the oppressed (wrongly termed "conservative," including by Greenhouse) to 4 who only sometimes wanted to do so (wrongly termed "liberal.") With Barrett having succeeded Ginsburg, it's 6 to 3. So the outcomes are largely the same. The difference is that Chief Justice John Roberts can no longer insist on a pretense of following precedent. He's now outvoted by 5 extremists openly contemptuous of any principle other than remaking the world as they choose. Roberts is acting to create the same Catholic plutocracy the rest of them are: he just would prefer to do it in a way that he thinks makes him look judicial. pp. 219-220, 233. The 2022 succession of Stephen Breyer by Ketanji Brown Jackson doesn't change the typical 6-3 split. The court was divided 5-4 from the late 1970s until 2020. All the "swing" justices were Republican-appointed, each farther toward "all-for-the-billionaire, nothing-for-the-rest" than the last. p. 234.
As of 2022, there are four women on the court: three who compose the typical voice-of-reason dissent (Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan), and one among the radical-right majority (Amy Coney Barrett).
All six radical-right justices were appointed by Republican presidents; the three moderates are Democratic appointees. (Among the predecessors of the 2022-current nine also, six were appointed by Republicans and three by Democrats.)
1947 Linda Greenhouse born. (Author of this book. https://law.yale.edu/linda-greenhouse )
1948 Clarence Thomas born. (G.H.W. Bush appointee, 1991, succeeding LBJ appointee Thurgood Marshall)
1950 Samuel Alito born. (George W. Bush appointee, 2006, succeeding Reagan appointee Sandra Day O'Connor)
1954 Sonia Sotomayor born. (Obama appointee, 2009, succeeding G.H.W. Bush appointee David Souter)
1955 John Roberts born. (George W. Bush appointee, 2005, succeeding Reagan appointee William Rehnquist)
1960 Elena Kagan born. (Obama appointee, 2010, succeeding Gerald Ford appointee John Paul Stevens)
1965 Brett Kavanaugh born. (Trump appointee, 2018, succeeding Reagan appointee Anthony Kennedy)
1967 Neil Gorsuch born. (Trump appointee, 2017, succeeding Reagan appointee Antonin Scalia)
1970 Ketanji Brown Jackson born. (Biden appointee, 2022, succeeding Clinton appointee Stephen Breyer)
1972 Amy Coney Barrett born. (Trump appointee, 2020, succeeding Clinton appointee Ruth Bader Ginsburg)
1981-2021 Reagan and all subsequent Republican presidents plege to appoint federal judges who would overturn the abortion rights of Roe v Wade. Meaning Catholic. p. 19.
1981-1982 John Roberts, then a lawyer in the Reagan administration, tries to end the Voting Rights Act. p. 5, 162, 234.
1988.02 The Senate confirms President Reagan's nominee, Anthony Kennedy, to the Supreme Court. p. xiii.
1991.10.23 Clarence Thomas, appointed by G.H.W. Bush, succeeds Thurgood Marshall.
1996.06.26 Ginsburg, Stevens, O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Breyer, Rehnquist decide United States v Virginia: Virginia Military Institute must admit qualified women. Scalia dissents. Thomas, whose son attended the school, recuses himself. pp. 43-44.
2002.06.27 Rehnquist, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas decide Zelman: public funds can be used for religious schools. Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer dissent. p. 17.
2005.09.29. John Roberts becomes chief justice, appointed by George W. Bush, succeeding Rehnquist. In the Roberts court, nearly 90 percent of religious claims prevail, vs. about half in the previous 52 years. Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, Barrett, all Catholic, and Gorsuch, Episcopalian raised Catholic, all favor the religious side in more than 90% of such cases. p. 19-20.
2006.01.31 Sandra Day O'Connor, the "swing" justice of her time, retires; Samuel Alito, appointed by George W. Bush, succeeds her, wrenching the court to the right on abortion, race, religion, and women's rights. p. 90. O'Connor was the only justice then or later, to have held elective office. p. 238. Before she announced her retirement, she wrote, "When we see around the world the violent consequences of the assumption of religious authority by government, Americans may count themselves fortunate: Our regard for the constitutional boundaries has protected us from similar travails while allowing private religious exercise to flourish. Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must answer: Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?" No current Republican appointee would say any such thing. They are all busily enshrining religion in law. p. 238.
2007.06.28 Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito decide Parents Involved in favor of white parents: integrating schools violated their Constitutional right to equal protection. Stevens, Breyer, Souter, Ginsburg dissent. pp. 5-6, 130-131.
2008.06.26 Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito decide District of Columbia v Heller, creating an individual right to bear arms, where the Constitution grants the right only for state militias. Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer dissent. pp. 170-175.
2009.08.08 Sonia Sotomayor, appointed by Obama, succeeds David Souter. She is the only one on the court to have ever presided over an actual trial. She was a Manhattan assistant district attorney five years, six years as a trial judge in federal district court in New York, and eleven years on the Second Circuit. p. 123.
2010.08.07 Elena Kagan, appointed by Obama, succeeds John Paul Stevens. She had been dean of Harvard Law School (where she hired "conservative" and "liberal" professors), then Obama's solicitor general. p. 228.
2013.06.25 Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito decide Shelby County [Alabama] v [Obama's Attorney General Eric] Holder, nullifying part of the Voting Rights Act. In dissent, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, says that the majority is throwing away our umbrella in a rainstorm because they haven't been getting wet. States rush to impose voting restrictions. pp. 13, 158-164, 224-229, 234.
2014.06.30 Alito, Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas decide Hobby Lobby: corporations don't have to provide legally-mandated healthcare coverage if the owner professes religion. Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Breyer, Kagan dissent. p. 23.
2015.06.26 Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan decide Obergefell: states must grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito dissent. pp. 56-58.
2016.02 Justice Antonin Scalia dies. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell immediately announces he won't permit President Obama to fill the vacancy. Nor to fill numerous other vacant federal judgeships. pp. xiii, xxi.
2016.06.27 Breyer, Ginsburg, Kennedy, Sotomayor, Kagan decide Whole Womens' Health: Texas may not impose undue burdens on abortion providers that would require closing half the abortion clinics in Texas. Roberts, Thomas, Alito dissent. p. 27, 189-191.
2016.11 Hillary Clinton loses to Donald Trump. With appointments by a Democratic president, the court would've upheld the right of the unborn to remain unborn to mothers who don't want and can't care for them; would've upheld voting rights, civil rights, and sometimes the rights of the accused. With a democratic socialist president, the appointed justices would also not have granted personhood rights to concentrations of wealth. p. 4, 89.
2017.01 Trump nominates Neil Gorsuch to fill the Scalia vacancy. Senate Republicans abolish the filibuster for Supreme Court appointments, so Democrats can't stop it. Gorsuch joins the court 2017.04.10. pp. xiii-xiv.
2017.05.08 Trump nominates Amy Barrett to a federal judgeship. p. xxi.
2017.06.26 Roberts, Kennedy, Alito, Kagan, Thomas, Gorsuch, Breyer decide Trinity Lutheran v Comer, requiring the state of Missouri to give money to a church. Only Sotomayor and Ginsburg object. pp. 15-16, 217-221.
2017-2020 Trump picks, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell installs, more than 200 federal judges. p. xi.
2018.10.06 Brett Kavanaugh, appointed by Trump, succeeds Anthony Kennedy. pp. xii-xiii.
2020.05.25 Minneapolis police murder unarmed black man George Floyd. The Roberts court will wait until fall to continue undoing civil rights. p. 4.
2020.06.05 Indiana University professor Winnifred Fallers Sullivan publishes a book, /Church State Corporation/, pointing out that the Roberts court has in numerous decisions privileged "the church," and corporations with power to deny legal rights to individuals. Even though "church" nowhere appears in the Constitution. Instead, the First Amendment grants religious rights to /individuals/ not to be required by the government to participate in a particular religion, nor to be prevented by the government from doing so. p. 21.
2020.06.30 Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, all Catholics, and Gorsuch, Episcopalian raised Catholic, decide Espinoza v Montana: the state is REQUIRED to give money to religious schools. Ginsburg, Kagan, Breyer (three Jews), and Sotomayor (nonpracticing Catholic) dissent. pp. 16-18, 218-221, 233.
2020.07.08 Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Kagan, Breyer decide Our Lady of Guadalupe: Religious schools are allowed to discriminate widely and with impunity for reasons wholly divorced from religious beliefs. Sotomayor and Ginsburg dissent. pp. 21-22, 218-219.
2020.07.08 Thomas, Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanagh, Kagan, Breyer decide Little Sisters of the Poor: Employers which are religious may deny their employees healthcare coverage. This permits such employers to deny coverage to their 2.9 million employees. Ginsburg and Sotomayor dissent. pp. 26, 88, 126-127.
2020.09.18 Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies. p. xv.
2020.09.26 Trump nominates Amy Coney Barrett. The Senate confirms her 2020.10.26; she joins the court 2020.10.27. pp. xii, 65.
2020.07-2021.01 Trump puts thirteen condemned prisoners to death. Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Barrett (2020.11- ) deny all appeals, consistently rejecting inmates' credible claims for relief. They refuse to consider reasons for a stay of execution, nor to give their reasons for denying a stay, or even vacating an existing stay. This is not justice, say Sotomayor and Ginsburg (2020.07), in dissent. Kagan usually dissents; Breyer often dissents. pp. 90-95, 111-112, 118-123, 144-148, 179-182, 198-201.
2020.11.25 Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett decide Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v Cuomo: Whatever anyone gets, religion must get too. If people are allowed to shop for groceries, there must be no limit on the number of congregants at a religious service, at whatever cost to public health, in a pandemic, with deaths at record levels, while the Supreme Court itself is meeting by phone. Roberts, Breyer, Kagan, Sotomayor dissent. pp. 96-99, 105, 106, 175-179, 255.
2021.01.06 Donald Trump incites a riot in the U.S. capitol in which several people die. p. 116.
2021.02.05 Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett decide South Bay United Pentecostal: California must weaken restrictions on public gatherings by making a special exemption for worship services. Kagan, Breyer, Sotomayor dissent. pp. 141-144.
2021.06.17 Roberts, Thomas, Breyer, Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett (9-0) decide Fulton v Philadelphia: An agency that finds foster parents has a religious right to deny same-sex couples consideration as potential foster parents, in violation of the city's antidiscrimination law. The city cannot refuse to contract with the agency. The government is now no longer neutral on religion. Religious claims now trump all others. "God hates fags" has the force of law. pp. 58, 75, 77-83, 207-221.
2021.06.23 Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett decide Cedar Point Nursery v Hassid: Any entry of a labor-union representative into a workplace is a categorical "taking" of the owner's property that the government cannot mandate without paying the owner. Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan dissent. pp. 221-224.
2021.07.01 Alito, Roberts, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett decide Brnovich v Democratic National Committee: Governments are free to make voting as inconvenient as they choose for racial minorities, Native Americans, people who live in non-affluent neighborhoods, students, anyone likely to vote Democratic. All that the Constitution now requires is that voting be theoretically possible. Kagan, Breyer, Sotomayor dissent. pp. 224-229, 234.
2021.08.13 This book's manuscript finished.
2021.11.09 This book's publication date.
2022.06.23 Thomas, Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett decide New York State Rifle & Pistol v Bruen: to carry a pistol in public (but not in the Supreme Court building) is a constitutional right. The state must not ask why the person wants to. Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan dissent. pp. 170-175.
2022.06.24 Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett, Roberts decide Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health: Roe v Wade and Casey are invalidated. Government officials may now compel a girl or woman to bring an unwanted child into the world against her will, however early in pregnancy she seeks to end it. Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan dissent. pp. 185-198.
2022.06.30 Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett decide West Virginia v Environmental Protection Agency: EPA must not require power companies to shift to solar or wind. Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan dissent.
2022.06.30 Stephen Breyer retires; Ketanji Brown Jackson, appointed by Biden, joins the court. She's the first justice raised Protestant to be appointed since G.H.W. Bush picked Souter (Episcopalian) in 1990. There are now five practicing Catholics (Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, Barrett), one Episcopalian raised Catholic (Gorsuch), one nonpracticing Catholic (Sotomayor) and one Jew (Kagan).
Too bad we couldn't've had a Justice Linda Greenhouse.
"I had nine months to write this book. It took every one of those months, plus the previous four decades of immersion in the life of the Supreme Court as a journalist, writer, and teacher."
Updates:
2022.09.06 Trump's radical-right judges dance to his tune:
2023.05.25 The Supreme Court deleted wetlands protections from the Clean Water Act. Heather Cox Richardson: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack... The actual Supreme Court opinion:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions... pp. 62-67 is Kagan's dissent, joined by Sotomayor and Jackson.
2023.06.01: Court erodes workers' right to strike, in Glacier Northwest v. Teamsters, 8-1: only Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented. Pp. 22-48 of the pdf is her dissent:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions...
Article in The Nation: https://www.thenation.com/article/pol...
2023.06.22 Right-wing justices accept expensive gifts from billionaires with cases before the court: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack...
2023.06.30 The Court reversed the secretary of education's provision of debt relief to student-loan borrowers during COVID. Pages 48-77 of the pdf are Justice Elena Kagan's dissent, joined by Sotomayor and Jackson: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions...
Heather Cox Richardson's blog on it: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack...
Clear, engaging, eye-opening. A year in the Supreme Court, 2020.06.30 through 2021.07.01. And, lots about the legal and political background. A good introduction to the major changes in many laws the Roberts court has made and is making: Require girls and women to bear children against their will. Require the government to give money to churches. Exempt anyone who professes a government-recognized religion from laws everyone must obey. Permit people in power who profess religion, to deny other people's rights, in ways that would be impermissible if the boss, owner, or official did not profess religion. Roll back voting rights, civil rights, and the rights of the accused. Erase restrictions on armed people roaming at large (but not in the Supreme Court building). Roll back environmental protections. Enshrine property rights. Slash government's power to regulate. Further curtail labor rights. Greenhouse gives us some glimpses behind the scenes, the justices' arguments among themselves that they don't share with the public. pp. 128-129.
With Ginsburg alive, the court was 5 justices who always want to privilege the privileged and oppress the oppressed (wrongly termed "conservative," including by Greenhouse) to 4 who only sometimes wanted to do so (wrongly termed "liberal.") With Barrett having succeeded Ginsburg, it's 6 to 3. So the outcomes are largely the same. The difference is that Chief Justice John Roberts can no longer insist on a pretense of following precedent. He's now outvoted by 5 extremists openly contemptuous of any principle other than remaking the world as they choose. Roberts is acting to create the same Catholic plutocracy the rest of them are: he just would prefer to do it in a way that he thinks makes him look judicial. pp. 219-220, 233. The 2022 succession of Stephen Breyer by Ketanji Brown Jackson doesn't change the typical 6-3 split. The court was divided 5-4 from the late 1970s until 2020. All the "swing" justices were Republican-appointed, each farther toward "all-for-the-billionaire, nothing-for-the-rest" than the last. p. 234.
As of 2022, there are four women on the court: three who compose the typical voice-of-reason dissent (Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan), and one among the radical-right majority (Amy Coney Barrett).
All six radical-right justices were appointed by Republican presidents; the three moderates are Democratic appointees. (Among the predecessors of the 2022-current nine also, six were appointed by Republicans and three by Democrats.)
1947 Linda Greenhouse born. (Author of this book. https://law.yale.edu/linda-greenhouse )
1948 Clarence Thomas born. (G.H.W. Bush appointee, 1991, succeeding LBJ appointee Thurgood Marshall)
1950 Samuel Alito born. (George W. Bush appointee, 2006, succeeding Reagan appointee Sandra Day O'Connor)
1954 Sonia Sotomayor born. (Obama appointee, 2009, succeeding G.H.W. Bush appointee David Souter)
1955 John Roberts born. (George W. Bush appointee, 2005, succeeding Reagan appointee William Rehnquist)
1960 Elena Kagan born. (Obama appointee, 2010, succeeding Gerald Ford appointee John Paul Stevens)
1965 Brett Kavanaugh born. (Trump appointee, 2018, succeeding Reagan appointee Anthony Kennedy)
1967 Neil Gorsuch born. (Trump appointee, 2017, succeeding Reagan appointee Antonin Scalia)
1970 Ketanji Brown Jackson born. (Biden appointee, 2022, succeeding Clinton appointee Stephen Breyer)
1972 Amy Coney Barrett born. (Trump appointee, 2020, succeeding Clinton appointee Ruth Bader Ginsburg)
1981-2021 Reagan and all subsequent Republican presidents plege to appoint federal judges who would overturn the abortion rights of Roe v Wade. Meaning Catholic. p. 19.
1981-1982 John Roberts, then a lawyer in the Reagan administration, tries to end the Voting Rights Act. p. 5, 162, 234.
1988.02 The Senate confirms President Reagan's nominee, Anthony Kennedy, to the Supreme Court. p. xiii.
1991.10.23 Clarence Thomas, appointed by G.H.W. Bush, succeeds Thurgood Marshall.
1996.06.26 Ginsburg, Stevens, O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Breyer, Rehnquist decide United States v Virginia: Virginia Military Institute must admit qualified women. Scalia dissents. Thomas, whose son attended the school, recuses himself. pp. 43-44.
2002.06.27 Rehnquist, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas decide Zelman: public funds can be used for religious schools. Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer dissent. p. 17.
2005.09.29. John Roberts becomes chief justice, appointed by George W. Bush, succeeding Rehnquist. In the Roberts court, nearly 90 percent of religious claims prevail, vs. about half in the previous 52 years. Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, Barrett, all Catholic, and Gorsuch, Episcopalian raised Catholic, all favor the religious side in more than 90% of such cases. p. 19-20.
2006.01.31 Sandra Day O'Connor, the "swing" justice of her time, retires; Samuel Alito, appointed by George W. Bush, succeeds her, wrenching the court to the right on abortion, race, religion, and women's rights. p. 90. O'Connor was the only justice then or later, to have held elective office. p. 238. Before she announced her retirement, she wrote, "When we see around the world the violent consequences of the assumption of religious authority by government, Americans may count themselves fortunate: Our regard for the constitutional boundaries has protected us from similar travails while allowing private religious exercise to flourish. Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must answer: Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?" No current Republican appointee would say any such thing. They are all busily enshrining religion in law. p. 238.
2007.06.28 Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito decide Parents Involved in favor of white parents: integrating schools violated their Constitutional right to equal protection. Stevens, Breyer, Souter, Ginsburg dissent. pp. 5-6, 130-131.
2008.06.26 Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito decide District of Columbia v Heller, creating an individual right to bear arms, where the Constitution grants the right only for state militias. Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer dissent. pp. 170-175.
2009.08.08 Sonia Sotomayor, appointed by Obama, succeeds David Souter. She is the only one on the court to have ever presided over an actual trial. She was a Manhattan assistant district attorney five years, six years as a trial judge in federal district court in New York, and eleven years on the Second Circuit. p. 123.
2010.08.07 Elena Kagan, appointed by Obama, succeeds John Paul Stevens. She had been dean of Harvard Law School (where she hired "conservative" and "liberal" professors), then Obama's solicitor general. p. 228.
2013.06.25 Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito decide Shelby County [Alabama] v [Obama's Attorney General Eric] Holder, nullifying part of the Voting Rights Act. In dissent, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, says that the majority is throwing away our umbrella in a rainstorm because they haven't been getting wet. States rush to impose voting restrictions. pp. 13, 158-164, 224-229, 234.
2014.06.30 Alito, Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas decide Hobby Lobby: corporations don't have to provide legally-mandated healthcare coverage if the owner professes religion. Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Breyer, Kagan dissent. p. 23.
2015.06.26 Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan decide Obergefell: states must grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito dissent. pp. 56-58.
2016.02 Justice Antonin Scalia dies. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell immediately announces he won't permit President Obama to fill the vacancy. Nor to fill numerous other vacant federal judgeships. pp. xiii, xxi.
2016.06.27 Breyer, Ginsburg, Kennedy, Sotomayor, Kagan decide Whole Womens' Health: Texas may not impose undue burdens on abortion providers that would require closing half the abortion clinics in Texas. Roberts, Thomas, Alito dissent. p. 27, 189-191.
2016.11 Hillary Clinton loses to Donald Trump. With appointments by a Democratic president, the court would've upheld the right of the unborn to remain unborn to mothers who don't want and can't care for them; would've upheld voting rights, civil rights, and sometimes the rights of the accused. With a democratic socialist president, the appointed justices would also not have granted personhood rights to concentrations of wealth. p. 4, 89.
2017.01 Trump nominates Neil Gorsuch to fill the Scalia vacancy. Senate Republicans abolish the filibuster for Supreme Court appointments, so Democrats can't stop it. Gorsuch joins the court 2017.04.10. pp. xiii-xiv.
2017.05.08 Trump nominates Amy Barrett to a federal judgeship. p. xxi.
2017.06.26 Roberts, Kennedy, Alito, Kagan, Thomas, Gorsuch, Breyer decide Trinity Lutheran v Comer, requiring the state of Missouri to give money to a church. Only Sotomayor and Ginsburg object. pp. 15-16, 217-221.
2017-2020 Trump picks, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell installs, more than 200 federal judges. p. xi.
2018.10.06 Brett Kavanaugh, appointed by Trump, succeeds Anthony Kennedy. pp. xii-xiii.
2020.05.25 Minneapolis police murder unarmed black man George Floyd. The Roberts court will wait until fall to continue undoing civil rights. p. 4.
2020.06.05 Indiana University professor Winnifred Fallers Sullivan publishes a book, /Church State Corporation/, pointing out that the Roberts court has in numerous decisions privileged "the church," and corporations with power to deny legal rights to individuals. Even though "church" nowhere appears in the Constitution. Instead, the First Amendment grants religious rights to /individuals/ not to be required by the government to participate in a particular religion, nor to be prevented by the government from doing so. p. 21.
2020.06.30 Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, all Catholics, and Gorsuch, Episcopalian raised Catholic, decide Espinoza v Montana: the state is REQUIRED to give money to religious schools. Ginsburg, Kagan, Breyer (three Jews), and Sotomayor (nonpracticing Catholic) dissent. pp. 16-18, 218-221, 233.
2020.07.08 Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Kagan, Breyer decide Our Lady of Guadalupe: Religious schools are allowed to discriminate widely and with impunity for reasons wholly divorced from religious beliefs. Sotomayor and Ginsburg dissent. pp. 21-22, 218-219.
2020.07.08 Thomas, Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanagh, Kagan, Breyer decide Little Sisters of the Poor: Employers which are religious may deny their employees healthcare coverage. This permits such employers to deny coverage to their 2.9 million employees. Ginsburg and Sotomayor dissent. pp. 26, 88, 126-127.
2020.09.18 Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies. p. xv.
2020.09.26 Trump nominates Amy Coney Barrett. The Senate confirms her 2020.10.26; she joins the court 2020.10.27. pp. xii, 65.
2020.07-2021.01 Trump puts thirteen condemned prisoners to death. Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Barrett (2020.11- ) deny all appeals, consistently rejecting inmates' credible claims for relief. They refuse to consider reasons for a stay of execution, nor to give their reasons for denying a stay, or even vacating an existing stay. This is not justice, say Sotomayor and Ginsburg (2020.07), in dissent. Kagan usually dissents; Breyer often dissents. pp. 90-95, 111-112, 118-123, 144-148, 179-182, 198-201.
2020.11.25 Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett decide Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v Cuomo: Whatever anyone gets, religion must get too. If people are allowed to shop for groceries, there must be no limit on the number of congregants at a religious service, at whatever cost to public health, in a pandemic, with deaths at record levels, while the Supreme Court itself is meeting by phone. Roberts, Breyer, Kagan, Sotomayor dissent. pp. 96-99, 105, 106, 175-179, 255.
2021.01.06 Donald Trump incites a riot in the U.S. capitol in which several people die. p. 116.
2021.02.05 Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett decide South Bay United Pentecostal: California must weaken restrictions on public gatherings by making a special exemption for worship services. Kagan, Breyer, Sotomayor dissent. pp. 141-144.
2021.06.17 Roberts, Thomas, Breyer, Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett (9-0) decide Fulton v Philadelphia: An agency that finds foster parents has a religious right to deny same-sex couples consideration as potential foster parents, in violation of the city's antidiscrimination law. The city cannot refuse to contract with the agency. The government is now no longer neutral on religion. Religious claims now trump all others. "God hates fags" has the force of law. pp. 58, 75, 77-83, 207-221.
2021.06.23 Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett decide Cedar Point Nursery v Hassid: Any entry of a labor-union representative into a workplace is a categorical "taking" of the owner's property that the government cannot mandate without paying the owner. Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan dissent. pp. 221-224.
2021.07.01 Alito, Roberts, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett decide Brnovich v Democratic National Committee: Governments are free to make voting as inconvenient as they choose for racial minorities, Native Americans, people who live in non-affluent neighborhoods, students, anyone likely to vote Democratic. All that the Constitution now requires is that voting be theoretically possible. Kagan, Breyer, Sotomayor dissent. pp. 224-229, 234.
2021.08.13 This book's manuscript finished.
2021.11.09 This book's publication date.
2022.06.23 Thomas, Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett decide New York State Rifle & Pistol v Bruen: to carry a pistol in public (but not in the Supreme Court building) is a constitutional right. The state must not ask why the person wants to. Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan dissent. pp. 170-175.
2022.06.24 Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett, Roberts decide Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health: Roe v Wade and Casey are invalidated. Government officials may now compel a girl or woman to bring an unwanted child into the world against her will, however early in pregnancy she seeks to end it. Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan dissent. pp. 185-198.
2022.06.30 Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett decide West Virginia v Environmental Protection Agency: EPA must not require power companies to shift to solar or wind. Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan dissent.
2022.06.30 Stephen Breyer retires; Ketanji Brown Jackson, appointed by Biden, joins the court. She's the first justice raised Protestant to be appointed since G.H.W. Bush picked Souter (Episcopalian) in 1990. There are now five practicing Catholics (Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, Barrett), one Episcopalian raised Catholic (Gorsuch), one nonpracticing Catholic (Sotomayor) and one Jew (Kagan).
Too bad we couldn't've had a Justice Linda Greenhouse.
"I had nine months to write this book. It took every one of those months, plus the previous four decades of immersion in the life of the Supreme Court as a journalist, writer, and teacher."
Updates:
2022.09.06 Trump's radical-right judges dance to his tune:
Trump-appointed judge Aileen Cannon granted Trump’s request for a special master to review the government documents the FBI recovered from Mar-a-Lago … which could delay the FBI investigation indefinitely ... an appeal would go to the 11th circuit, where Trump appointed 6 of the 11 judges who, if they wished, could further delay the case, and then agree with Cannon. The Department of Justice could then appeal to the Supreme Court: which now has a 6 to 3 Republican majority, three of whom Trump himself appointed. --Heather Cox Richardson https://heathercoxrichardson.substack...
2023.05.25 The Supreme Court deleted wetlands protections from the Clean Water Act. Heather Cox Richardson: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack... The actual Supreme Court opinion:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions... pp. 62-67 is Kagan's dissent, joined by Sotomayor and Jackson.
2023.06.01: Court erodes workers' right to strike, in Glacier Northwest v. Teamsters, 8-1: only Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented. Pp. 22-48 of the pdf is her dissent:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions...
Workers are not indentured servants, bound to continue laboring until any planned work stoppage would be as painless as possible for their master. They are employees whose collective and peaceful decision to withhold their labor is protected by the NLRA even if economic injury results. pdf p. 47 of 48.
Article in The Nation: https://www.thenation.com/article/pol...
2023.06.22 Right-wing justices accept expensive gifts from billionaires with cases before the court: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack...
2023.06.30 The Court reversed the secretary of education's provision of debt relief to student-loan borrowers during COVID. Pages 48-77 of the pdf are Justice Elena Kagan's dissent, joined by Sotomayor and Jackson: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions...
Heather Cox Richardson's blog on it: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack...
March 29, 2022
I have always been interested in the Supreme Court and how it functions. Each Justice is nominated for life so it does have a huge impact on us in the US.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg became an icon and cultural sensation. She was called RBG because she was fierce and bold. This book concentrates for 12 months from 2020-2021. This was when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and Amy Coney Barrett became the new justice. This was the third Justice President Trump had appointed during his Presidency and the most watched new justice. It was very interesting to hear how the Justices think and decide case law. Alliances are built and this change caused a shift. John Roberts is the Chief Justice and often would be the swing vote on certain cases. Now that has changed. I was unaware of the impact of Samuel Alito. He often does not agree with Judge Roberts. Everyone was uncertain how Judge Barrett would decide on new cases coming forth, but she decided differently then expected several times. Central issues were brought forth about voting practices, rights of religious groups, the death penalty, and several more.
Justices don’t just decide on their own how to vote, but rely on precedent of past laws. This is not clear cut though, because deciding which case law to reference is crucial. Interrupting several laws and some are contradictory, is discussed and used to justify an opinion. So, I think it is crucial to know how the Supreme Court works. It’s really fascinating and the author who writes for the New York Times expertly understands the process, but explains it in a way that I could follow. There are many prior cases that were referenced.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the working of the Supreme Court as it is presently functioning. If you like reading about case laws and the impact each has on our lives I would definitely recommend this book. I really enjoyed it.
Update: In this book there was discussion of Stephen Breyer being pressured to Retire since he is 83 and is serving during the Biden Presidency. He had said he did not want to. Last week, it was announced that Justice Breyer will be stepping down. Biden has said he is going to nominate a black woman for the open seat. It will be very interesting to see who he picks and how another new person starting will effect the Court.
Thank you NetGalley, Linda Greenhouse, and Random House for a copy of this book
Ruth Bader Ginsburg became an icon and cultural sensation. She was called RBG because she was fierce and bold. This book concentrates for 12 months from 2020-2021. This was when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and Amy Coney Barrett became the new justice. This was the third Justice President Trump had appointed during his Presidency and the most watched new justice. It was very interesting to hear how the Justices think and decide case law. Alliances are built and this change caused a shift. John Roberts is the Chief Justice and often would be the swing vote on certain cases. Now that has changed. I was unaware of the impact of Samuel Alito. He often does not agree with Judge Roberts. Everyone was uncertain how Judge Barrett would decide on new cases coming forth, but she decided differently then expected several times. Central issues were brought forth about voting practices, rights of religious groups, the death penalty, and several more.
Justices don’t just decide on their own how to vote, but rely on precedent of past laws. This is not clear cut though, because deciding which case law to reference is crucial. Interrupting several laws and some are contradictory, is discussed and used to justify an opinion. So, I think it is crucial to know how the Supreme Court works. It’s really fascinating and the author who writes for the New York Times expertly understands the process, but explains it in a way that I could follow. There are many prior cases that were referenced.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the working of the Supreme Court as it is presently functioning. If you like reading about case laws and the impact each has on our lives I would definitely recommend this book. I really enjoyed it.
Update: In this book there was discussion of Stephen Breyer being pressured to Retire since he is 83 and is serving during the Biden Presidency. He had said he did not want to. Last week, it was announced that Justice Breyer will be stepping down. Biden has said he is going to nominate a black woman for the open seat. It will be very interesting to see who he picks and how another new person starting will effect the Court.
Thank you NetGalley, Linda Greenhouse, and Random House for a copy of this book
Read
August 4, 2023While the legal nonfiction I have consumed in my life is but a tiny fraction of the total books I've read, I still view it as a particular area of interest. So on some level I went into this expecting to enjoy the experience. As a person that pays passing attention to the working of the court, and maybe slightly more attention over the last year or so I did appreciate a lot of what this book had to offer. A lot of the nonfiction I've read about the Court lately does a good job in framing the context of the Court in broad strokes, and this does that. It also does a good job of framing the history of the Justices and the ways that they have contradicted themself and bent framework to shift the conversation about a particular case in a way that defies logic.
The main issue I have is that this felt like it was in conversation with an earlier draft of this book, a draft that felt slightly out of date despite a narrow gap between a potential publication of that draft and this book. Something constantly loomed over the book that made it feel just a step or two behind... Which I suppose is a risk you run when the Court is speed running the destruction of legal precedent at the time that you are a writing a book about the destruction of legal precedent and the implication that has for the public. So while something felt off, holding this book responsible for that feels wrong.
Overall I appreciated what Greenhouse had to say, and the framework construction for the conversation that was presented. i would likely read this again and would urge others to pick it up for themselves.
The main issue I have is that this felt like it was in conversation with an earlier draft of this book, a draft that felt slightly out of date despite a narrow gap between a potential publication of that draft and this book. Something constantly loomed over the book that made it feel just a step or two behind... Which I suppose is a risk you run when the Court is speed running the destruction of legal precedent at the time that you are a writing a book about the destruction of legal precedent and the implication that has for the public. So while something felt off, holding this book responsible for that feels wrong.
Overall I appreciated what Greenhouse had to say, and the framework construction for the conversation that was presented. i would likely read this again and would urge others to pick it up for themselves.
February 13, 2022
My local newspaper gets a bit sloppy with its editing every so often. Several times a year it will publish the exact-same story twice in the same issue. You'll find it on page three, for example, and again on page seven. Oops.
I had that same feeling as I read this book and for the longest time I didn't know why.
About half way through it dawned on me. The author had constructed the book as a sort-of diary. The chapters were named after months, beginning with July 2020, then August-September, October, November, and so on.
I rarely pay attention to chapter titles. But once noticed, it explained why I was getting that Haven't I already read this? feeling.
Greenhouse would be discussing a particular case and the attitudes of the nine Supreme Court Justices months before it was going to be decided, then skip--quite without notice --to another topic and leave me (the reader) quite bewildered.
In a later chapter I'd find another discussion of that same case as seen in that particular month, but, alas, still not decided.
Eventually we'd get there, but covering some of the same ground and leave me wondering again if my bookmark had fallen out and got replaced at random.
Greenhouse says in an an Author's Notes and Acknowledgements that the book was not her idea. Her editors called her and said, basically, Hey we have this idea for you. Can you do it in nine months? As one who has edited lots of articles for magazines, I'd have to say this book has all the earmarks of hasty organization to mesh with the news cycle and the product is discombobolated . . . sort of like my local daily newspaper.
Nevertheless, a tenacious reader will learn from Linda Greenhouse's great insights into the workings of the Supreme Court, its personality clashes (reminiscent of put-downs in a high school corridor), and especially the precedents that guide its contemporary thinking. It made me want to read some of her earlier books for the perspective they would likely provide.
I had that same feeling as I read this book and for the longest time I didn't know why.
About half way through it dawned on me. The author had constructed the book as a sort-of diary. The chapters were named after months, beginning with July 2020, then August-September, October, November, and so on.
I rarely pay attention to chapter titles. But once noticed, it explained why I was getting that Haven't I already read this? feeling.
Greenhouse would be discussing a particular case and the attitudes of the nine Supreme Court Justices months before it was going to be decided, then skip--quite without notice --to another topic and leave me (the reader) quite bewildered.
In a later chapter I'd find another discussion of that same case as seen in that particular month, but, alas, still not decided.
Eventually we'd get there, but covering some of the same ground and leave me wondering again if my bookmark had fallen out and got replaced at random.
Greenhouse says in an an Author's Notes and Acknowledgements that the book was not her idea. Her editors called her and said, basically, Hey we have this idea for you. Can you do it in nine months? As one who has edited lots of articles for magazines, I'd have to say this book has all the earmarks of hasty organization to mesh with the news cycle and the product is discombobolated . . . sort of like my local daily newspaper.
Nevertheless, a tenacious reader will learn from Linda Greenhouse's great insights into the workings of the Supreme Court, its personality clashes (reminiscent of put-downs in a high school corridor), and especially the precedents that guide its contemporary thinking. It made me want to read some of her earlier books for the perspective they would likely provide.
April 14, 2022
The specter hovering over the entirety of Greenhouse's meticulous narrative of the COVID year of the Supreme Court is that Ruth Bader Ginsburg gambled that she could outlast a Republican presidency and lost. We'll see how much newly-anointed Supreme Court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who does not appear in these pages, enjoys writing dissents, since she will likely spend the first decade of her service writing a lot of them.
April 1, 2022
Excellent and clear description/explanation of the recent Court term that looks at specific cases and important background context. The author’s note states it was written chapter by chapter, in real time, which lends to the sense of immediacy. It also results in some minor repetition - but worth it for the logical, chronological (rather than case-by-case) structure.
January 25, 2023
Compelling, incisive, and more than a little terrifying.
September 29, 2022
There was a lot to digest in this book. At times it was difficult to read. Realizing that our Supreme Court has slowly but surely become more conservative over the past decades was a real eye opener. The motivations of prior presidents taken into account, one is rather appalled at the consequences of their decisions, and why those decisions were made. This book is a very good review of the most important judicial cases over the past few decades, and how the Supreme Court was set up to make sure that those decisions went a certain way. You can’t quite say it is a conspiracy theory, but it was a slowly developed and carefully modulated plan to get us to where we are today. The book can get dry and sometimes it seems there is no real focus, but this is the stuff that you have to learn to see how we got to where we are today.
The author spends a good deal of time on each of the current justices, as well as Ginsburg, O’Connell, and others, leading inexorably to the current justices and the decisions that over the past decade have started to redefine our society in very unbelievable and frightening ways. This book was written prior to the final Roe v. Wade debacle, and I would love to see the author put that in context now along with the cases that followed concerning religious freedom, all of which turned back the clock.
It is difficult to accept the fact that a few people in a position of power can interpret the law in such a way that millions of people are affected in such deleterious ways. And that there isn’t anything you can really do about it except fight back. The hardest part to accept is that these decisions were often, in fact mostly made, because of the religious fervor of these few individuals. Make no mistake about it. This is a very religious right wing Court and it had been planned for decades, starting with Reagan and moving forward. We have no choice, but to alter the course of the Supreme Court if we plan to keep our freedoms. The new session coming up will address racial and LGBTQ plus issues so you know that it’s only going to get worse. We must expand the Court and we must continue to fight.
The author spends a good deal of time on each of the current justices, as well as Ginsburg, O’Connell, and others, leading inexorably to the current justices and the decisions that over the past decade have started to redefine our society in very unbelievable and frightening ways. This book was written prior to the final Roe v. Wade debacle, and I would love to see the author put that in context now along with the cases that followed concerning religious freedom, all of which turned back the clock.
It is difficult to accept the fact that a few people in a position of power can interpret the law in such a way that millions of people are affected in such deleterious ways. And that there isn’t anything you can really do about it except fight back. The hardest part to accept is that these decisions were often, in fact mostly made, because of the religious fervor of these few individuals. Make no mistake about it. This is a very religious right wing Court and it had been planned for decades, starting with Reagan and moving forward. We have no choice, but to alter the course of the Supreme Court if we plan to keep our freedoms. The new session coming up will address racial and LGBTQ plus issues so you know that it’s only going to get worse. We must expand the Court and we must continue to fight.
January 12, 2022
Disturbing Situation
It’s very possible that the Supreme Court is set to support a Right Wing Theocracy ruled by White people. Corporations will have more rights than citizens and government will not support public programs and goods. The author warns us that the Supreme Court is ready to ban abortion, support voter suppression and corporate desires.
It’s very possible that the Supreme Court is set to support a Right Wing Theocracy ruled by White people. Corporations will have more rights than citizens and government will not support public programs and goods. The author warns us that the Supreme Court is ready to ban abortion, support voter suppression and corporate desires.
April 4, 2024
This is my third Greenhouse book (Becoming Justice Blackmun and The Supreme Court), so needless to say: I appreciate Linda Greenhouse. There were parts of this book that did not disappoint, but her lack of regard, thinly-veiled contempt, and disrespect for so many of the justices was simply distracting.
I get it Roberts isn’t Warren or Berger or even Rehnquist. Barrett will never be SDO, a conservative RGB or (fill in the blank). Gorsuch is insufferable and Alito is . . . well, Alito. No one will ever mistake Kavanaugh for Oliver Wendell Holmes. But your assigning motives that can’t possibly be known, seeing long-term nefarious strategies masterminded by the chief justice, etc etc was not the cogent, insightful somewhat-middle-of-the-road writing I was hoping for. It was disappointing and distracting.
PS
Please forgive the misspelling of any of the Justices names. No disrespect intended.
I get it Roberts isn’t Warren or Berger or even Rehnquist. Barrett will never be SDO, a conservative RGB or (fill in the blank). Gorsuch is insufferable and Alito is . . . well, Alito. No one will ever mistake Kavanaugh for Oliver Wendell Holmes. But your assigning motives that can’t possibly be known, seeing long-term nefarious strategies masterminded by the chief justice, etc etc was not the cogent, insightful somewhat-middle-of-the-road writing I was hoping for. It was disappointing and distracting.
PS
Please forgive the misspelling of any of the Justices names. No disrespect intended.
August 11, 2022
This is a good and worthwhile book. If nothing else, it covers in depth the federal execution spree the Trump administration went on after losing the 2020 election. This is something that has been severely under-covered. And this book does a good job discussing it and bringing it to the forefront.
And other than that, it does a good job especially profiling Justice Coney-Barrett, Justice Alito and Justice Roberts.
It was written before Justice Breyer retired and Justice Brown-Jackson was nominated and confirmed.
It discusses the Dobbs case a very little bit. But this book was written and published before the majority opinion leaked.
Mostly this book covers freedom of religion cases and also profiles specific Justices and their written opinions and tendencies.
And other than that, it does a good job especially profiling Justice Coney-Barrett, Justice Alito and Justice Roberts.
It was written before Justice Breyer retired and Justice Brown-Jackson was nominated and confirmed.
It discusses the Dobbs case a very little bit. But this book was written and published before the majority opinion leaked.
Mostly this book covers freedom of religion cases and also profiles specific Justices and their written opinions and tendencies.
August 27, 2022
Recent history is difficult to write, and perhaps in another decade I’d rate this book higher. It is certainly thorough and specific. But for someone who follows Supreme Court history and opinions, it offered none of the BTS insights and timely reflections that other books have when discussing slightly less recent (or not recent at all) court history. This is not the author’s fault.
January 10, 2022
Greenhouse achieves a lot in this book (notwithstanding its alarmist title), which roughly covers the time period from Justice Ginsburg’s death to the October 2021 Supreme Court term. Her account recaps many major cases over the past few years in a way a lay reader can easily enjoy in a style that focuses on the cases’ procedural backstory with an informed almost behind the scenes insight into the Court’s culture.
This is easy enough to do because Greenhouse is of course a prominent Court journalist. What she does excellently is draw readers to the importance of cert decisions, the Justices’ private conferences, and the shadow docket. A few themes are superbly handled such as the Court’s messy doctrinal changes, the give and take between Justices, and the ways each Justice is able to shape their influence in different way. Examples abound like why a Justice might write a dissent—and crucially a statement respecting the denial of cert. Most of the time Greenhouse provides opinions on the way a Justice acts—such as to alert legislators, guide lower courts, or inform litigators. We get great looks at Sotomoyor’s recent dissents and Alito’s overt memos about how to frame litigation in religious terms that the Court will accept.
Greenhouse’s discussion of the Mifepristone FDA case is especially good and previews the likely outcome of pending cases (and begs the question of how federal regulation can impact reproductive rights in a post-Roe world). The preview of New York State Rifle Association is also stellar.
Greenhouse’s opinions about the Justices and competing doctrines are where people will disagree. Central to Greenhouse’s thesis is that the Court has become exceptionally motivated by religious exceptionalism (this is more of a theme than whether this is a Trump Court). The author is very fair about presenting the arguments in cases but we also get a lot of subtle (and often not subtle) editorializing about the legitimacy of these arguments and the subsequent constitutional decisions.
Ultimately, this is a great and important recap of the cases over the past two years dealing with speech rights, COVID rules, abortion, religion, voting rights, healthcare and the death penalty. Greenhouse contextualizes all of these cases so well within the Court and it’s Justice’s history.
Where the book falls a bit short is in being repetitive about our recent political backstory (I for one need no more recaps about January 6th and the stop the steal insanity) and many will take issue with Greenhouse’s clear dislike for Justices Coney Barrett, Thomas, and Alito and admiration for Sotomayor and Ginsburg. But we still get an authoritative account of the prevailing opinions on each and Greenhouse recap is full of rich historical detail about the cases decided (or at least debated) and the Justices’ backstories (if not biographies).
Greenhouse’s overall thesis is often persuasive (and regardless of how people feel about issues the cases are presented accurately even if Greenhouse editorializes about the policy issues). The level of detail she Marshall’s such as Justice Coney Barrett’s law review article on Catholicism and the Death Penalty or Alito’s tenure as an US Attorney are just enough without being too much for this kind of book and presented in ways that are central to the cases discussed. The doctrinal shifts on voting rights, abortion, and religious freedom get similarly treatment. I especially enjoyed Greenhouse’s presentation of the litigation teams and organizations— how these litigation organizations diverge or reach consensus is interesting to compare with how the Justices fall.
Whether anyone agrees with whether Justice Alito personifies grievance conservatism or if religion should receive equal treatment and not special treatment is probably relevant to each reader to the degree they believe that hypothesis is testable. Greenhouse seems to believe it is and she persuasively juxtaposes recent decisions on death penalty and COVID cases where religion is an issue and when it isn’t.
Some minor themes are also worth debate. For instance the style that each Justice uses to wield influence or their goals. Greenhouse’s account on why a judge dissents or writes a book or gives a speech is not authoritative but is a great introduction. A close reader may wonder how the increased media and pop culture attention has enhanced or created these channels of influence enhances or detracts from the Court’s legitimacy and influence—Greenhouse’s book is itself an example and it brings to mind Joseph Mark Sterns comments about the ease of accessing primary source documents or makes me think of listening to Dahlia Lithwick’s post-argument interviews of the case litigators. Other questions that remain unresolved are the use of shadow docket, cert decisions, conferences, oral argument and injunctions, which I appreciate because it is often overlooked and misunderstood.
Greenhouse excels at depicting how seemingly small issues or cases are important (this often gets a bit into admin law, civil procedure, and statutory interpretation which we should all know better while being easily digestible). In the end none of us will know how or why Justices approach issues the way they do or how they and the Court changes over time, but Greenhouse gives us an interesting recap of the current Court and a compelling preview of its future.
This is easy enough to do because Greenhouse is of course a prominent Court journalist. What she does excellently is draw readers to the importance of cert decisions, the Justices’ private conferences, and the shadow docket. A few themes are superbly handled such as the Court’s messy doctrinal changes, the give and take between Justices, and the ways each Justice is able to shape their influence in different way. Examples abound like why a Justice might write a dissent—and crucially a statement respecting the denial of cert. Most of the time Greenhouse provides opinions on the way a Justice acts—such as to alert legislators, guide lower courts, or inform litigators. We get great looks at Sotomoyor’s recent dissents and Alito’s overt memos about how to frame litigation in religious terms that the Court will accept.
Greenhouse’s discussion of the Mifepristone FDA case is especially good and previews the likely outcome of pending cases (and begs the question of how federal regulation can impact reproductive rights in a post-Roe world). The preview of New York State Rifle Association is also stellar.
Greenhouse’s opinions about the Justices and competing doctrines are where people will disagree. Central to Greenhouse’s thesis is that the Court has become exceptionally motivated by religious exceptionalism (this is more of a theme than whether this is a Trump Court). The author is very fair about presenting the arguments in cases but we also get a lot of subtle (and often not subtle) editorializing about the legitimacy of these arguments and the subsequent constitutional decisions.
Ultimately, this is a great and important recap of the cases over the past two years dealing with speech rights, COVID rules, abortion, religion, voting rights, healthcare and the death penalty. Greenhouse contextualizes all of these cases so well within the Court and it’s Justice’s history.
Where the book falls a bit short is in being repetitive about our recent political backstory (I for one need no more recaps about January 6th and the stop the steal insanity) and many will take issue with Greenhouse’s clear dislike for Justices Coney Barrett, Thomas, and Alito and admiration for Sotomayor and Ginsburg. But we still get an authoritative account of the prevailing opinions on each and Greenhouse recap is full of rich historical detail about the cases decided (or at least debated) and the Justices’ backstories (if not biographies).
Greenhouse’s overall thesis is often persuasive (and regardless of how people feel about issues the cases are presented accurately even if Greenhouse editorializes about the policy issues). The level of detail she Marshall’s such as Justice Coney Barrett’s law review article on Catholicism and the Death Penalty or Alito’s tenure as an US Attorney are just enough without being too much for this kind of book and presented in ways that are central to the cases discussed. The doctrinal shifts on voting rights, abortion, and religious freedom get similarly treatment. I especially enjoyed Greenhouse’s presentation of the litigation teams and organizations— how these litigation organizations diverge or reach consensus is interesting to compare with how the Justices fall.
Whether anyone agrees with whether Justice Alito personifies grievance conservatism or if religion should receive equal treatment and not special treatment is probably relevant to each reader to the degree they believe that hypothesis is testable. Greenhouse seems to believe it is and she persuasively juxtaposes recent decisions on death penalty and COVID cases where religion is an issue and when it isn’t.
Some minor themes are also worth debate. For instance the style that each Justice uses to wield influence or their goals. Greenhouse’s account on why a judge dissents or writes a book or gives a speech is not authoritative but is a great introduction. A close reader may wonder how the increased media and pop culture attention has enhanced or created these channels of influence enhances or detracts from the Court’s legitimacy and influence—Greenhouse’s book is itself an example and it brings to mind Joseph Mark Sterns comments about the ease of accessing primary source documents or makes me think of listening to Dahlia Lithwick’s post-argument interviews of the case litigators. Other questions that remain unresolved are the use of shadow docket, cert decisions, conferences, oral argument and injunctions, which I appreciate because it is often overlooked and misunderstood.
Greenhouse excels at depicting how seemingly small issues or cases are important (this often gets a bit into admin law, civil procedure, and statutory interpretation which we should all know better while being easily digestible). In the end none of us will know how or why Justices approach issues the way they do or how they and the Court changes over time, but Greenhouse gives us an interesting recap of the current Court and a compelling preview of its future.
June 27, 2022
Maybe four stars rounded up as I think, for some of the writing, I needed more of a base-level of understanding of how the court and other legal processes go, so that is on my own insufficient knowledge. But this book does an incredible job of letting us know what, actually, is unprecedented and the severity of not just the new 6-3 majority but the extremity to which the members are leaning in a way that has been unheard of for decades. The numbers on how many previous Justices had such a range of which way they cast their opinion to the numbers of the current Justices truly do suggest a loss of moderate-ness, nuance and respect for balance, disagreement, etc., and I fear “freedom” will only mean freedoms for those who see through the majority’s narrow, subjective lense; it’s definitely a scary read, and I wish I felt more action steps as I finished.
February 7, 2023
This was a hard read, because it really exposes how venal and unprincipled most of the current American Supreme Court people. And also how bad at law they are. It was really depressing, reminding me how much my country sucks. And why we shouldn't respect it, or feel any obligation to follow its laws.
But it didn't really give me much background in how far from normal the losers have drifted. I knew which decisions Greenhouse liked and disliked, but she didn't do a good job in grounding all her attitudes. Like, a ruling that contradicts precedent is differently bad than a ruling that is morally wrong or one that flies against public opinion, and I didn't always feel she had a firm grasp on that.
Also, there was a lot of repetition, which is explained in the afterward where she explains that this was written as sort of a diary as the court proved itself corrupt month after month. So sometimes they would repeat the same shenanigans in a later case.
But it didn't really give me much background in how far from normal the losers have drifted. I knew which decisions Greenhouse liked and disliked, but she didn't do a good job in grounding all her attitudes. Like, a ruling that contradicts precedent is differently bad than a ruling that is morally wrong or one that flies against public opinion, and I didn't always feel she had a firm grasp on that.
Also, there was a lot of repetition, which is explained in the afterward where she explains that this was written as sort of a diary as the court proved itself corrupt month after month. So sometimes they would repeat the same shenanigans in a later case.
October 13, 2023
Justice on the Brink is an instructive and informative read tracing the movement of the U.S. Supreme Court in veering to the religious right. Greenhouse uses the text of decisions combined with other contextual history to demonstrate big movements in many areas of the law that have occurred over just one court term. It is frankly astonishing how much the court has moved in now granting religion most favored nation status especially from where the court was in 2010 when I was reading cases in law school. 3.75 stars as a somewhat dry read at times rounded up to 4 stars given the critical nature of the topic.
March 13, 2022
Taking together the pieces I've been reading for the past several years, this book creates a picture that is absolutely nauseating. It's saddening to see the extent of corruption and how society in general and the judiciary in particularly impacted. I value Greenhouse's contribution but I fear that it will be on the list of books to burn if aspects of our society have their way. Can't leave a well documented record of what really happened, can we? That would undermine the Republican Gaslighting Project currently underway.
November 2, 2021
JUSTICE ON THE BRINK is an excellent book by author Linda Greenhouse, a frequent contributor to the NewYork Times. It is a really deep dive into the single year transformation of the Supreme Court that occurred with the death of Justice Ginsburg and her ultimate replacement with Justice Barrett. It was a culmination of conservative political efforts that had begun at the end of Obama’s presidency. A wild guess on my part, most readers of this book will be disappointed with this transformation; the political taint on ‘justice’ will be felt for decades. Chief Justice Roberts may find he is the one most upset by the legacy that results. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.
January 4, 2022
Although much of this did not surprise me given my recent following of the Supreme Court, it certainly supports my concerns about justice in this country. The information here was well presented and very approachable.
Read
March 9, 2022Read for book club— incredibly validating as a member of the mentioned “energetic PR team”
January 11, 2023
Linda Greenhouse, Justice on the Brink: The Death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Rise of Amy Coney Barrett, and Twelve Months that Transformed the Supreme Court. Published by Random House, c. 2021.
Linda Greenhouse teaches at Yale Law school and has reported on the U.S. Supreme Court for the New York Times for more than 40 years. Her book is a masterful achievement, weaving together several themes from a tumultuous year. The basic story covers the Supreme Court from the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on September 18, 2020, to October, 2021, when Amy Coney Barrett took her seat on the Court. The book is supplied with references to cases, articles, books, and commentary dealing with the Court. There is a lengthy index (look up Elena Kagan to see how often she’s cited).
People who follow the Supreme Court in the news will have enough background and familiarity with the issues to take in the discussion. Eleven chapters and an epilogue are organized on a roughly month to month basis. For each period, Greenhouse discusses the cases and issues coming before the Court, the background in earlier cases, relevant precedents, and positions of the justices. Although nominally covering a year, the background extends from the elevation of John Roberts to chief justice after the death of William Rehnquist and the death of Antonin Scalia in February, 2016 to the death of Ruth Ginsburg and her replacement by Amy Coney Barrett. The period includes the appointments of Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor.
Each chapter weaves several themes together. For example, Chapter Six begins with Donald Trump’s “Save America” speech, the beginning of the January 6th 2021 insurrection. It discusses the death penalty cases reaching the Supreme Court the previous fall in the Trump administration’s “expedited spree of executions,” with dissents by Justice Sotomayor criticizing the standards being applied (or ignored). Justice Thomas’ originalist views are “best described as idiosyncratic.” There follow treatment of cases involving the Affordable Care Act, affirmative action in university admissions (before the Court again in the 2022-2023 term), and access to abortificiants (Sotomayor dissenting, “but the record here is bereft of any reasoning”).
Greenhouse notes the Court’s shift toward a conservative, Federalist, “originalist” orientation. The underlying theme is the story of how the centrist, incrementalist “Roberts’ Court” has been transformed. It’s not clear who’s Court it is now, but there are indications that Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are leading the conservative charge. Long-standing precedents have been transformed or reversed and the scope of rights narrowed. Not just the right to abortion, but also the authority of federal administrative agencies, affirmative action, voting rights, COVID restrictions, and, as noted, the death penalty have been affected. There are indications that the transformations will continue. On the horizon are possible changes in affirmative action programs, the structure of state government, the Affordable Care Act, First Amendment rights, the rights of religious organizations, voting rights, access to court (or the flip side, immunity from suit), and the church/state balance required by the First Amendment.
As Adam Liptak noted recently/1 these are momentous changes, not just in the issues and cases being considered, they are an important shift in the attitude the Court holds about itself. As others have noted, the Supreme Court seems not to trust the judgment of Congress or the lower courts and frequently brushes aside their decisions.
All courts, not just the Supreme Court, exist in the context of a social agreement. Courts are entrusted to sort out the issues and make decisions that most of us consider fair and equitable. But in many ways the current Court seems to have lost touch with the social realities of today’s world. Does anybody really believe that large sums of money contributed to political campaigns by wealthy donors and/or corporations are without influence? Does anybody believe that women have not practiced abortion, legally or illegally and often with dire consequences, throughout recorded history? The list of the Court’s fantastic thinking is quite long. There is a large body of commentary on the Supreme Court in the legal literature, much of it critical, but as Chemerinsky points out/2 very little of it filters through to the public. The Justices may hold life tenure, but they read the newspapers; an informed public is an important check on their excesses. Linda Greenhouse’s book is an important contribution to helping all of us understand some of what’s going on.
1/ https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/19/us...
2/ Edwin Chemerinsky, Worse Than Nothing: The Dangerous Fallacy of Originalism. Yale, 2022.
Linda Greenhouse teaches at Yale Law school and has reported on the U.S. Supreme Court for the New York Times for more than 40 years. Her book is a masterful achievement, weaving together several themes from a tumultuous year. The basic story covers the Supreme Court from the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on September 18, 2020, to October, 2021, when Amy Coney Barrett took her seat on the Court. The book is supplied with references to cases, articles, books, and commentary dealing with the Court. There is a lengthy index (look up Elena Kagan to see how often she’s cited).
People who follow the Supreme Court in the news will have enough background and familiarity with the issues to take in the discussion. Eleven chapters and an epilogue are organized on a roughly month to month basis. For each period, Greenhouse discusses the cases and issues coming before the Court, the background in earlier cases, relevant precedents, and positions of the justices. Although nominally covering a year, the background extends from the elevation of John Roberts to chief justice after the death of William Rehnquist and the death of Antonin Scalia in February, 2016 to the death of Ruth Ginsburg and her replacement by Amy Coney Barrett. The period includes the appointments of Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor.
Each chapter weaves several themes together. For example, Chapter Six begins with Donald Trump’s “Save America” speech, the beginning of the January 6th 2021 insurrection. It discusses the death penalty cases reaching the Supreme Court the previous fall in the Trump administration’s “expedited spree of executions,” with dissents by Justice Sotomayor criticizing the standards being applied (or ignored). Justice Thomas’ originalist views are “best described as idiosyncratic.” There follow treatment of cases involving the Affordable Care Act, affirmative action in university admissions (before the Court again in the 2022-2023 term), and access to abortificiants (Sotomayor dissenting, “but the record here is bereft of any reasoning”).
Greenhouse notes the Court’s shift toward a conservative, Federalist, “originalist” orientation. The underlying theme is the story of how the centrist, incrementalist “Roberts’ Court” has been transformed. It’s not clear who’s Court it is now, but there are indications that Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are leading the conservative charge. Long-standing precedents have been transformed or reversed and the scope of rights narrowed. Not just the right to abortion, but also the authority of federal administrative agencies, affirmative action, voting rights, COVID restrictions, and, as noted, the death penalty have been affected. There are indications that the transformations will continue. On the horizon are possible changes in affirmative action programs, the structure of state government, the Affordable Care Act, First Amendment rights, the rights of religious organizations, voting rights, access to court (or the flip side, immunity from suit), and the church/state balance required by the First Amendment.
As Adam Liptak noted recently/1 these are momentous changes, not just in the issues and cases being considered, they are an important shift in the attitude the Court holds about itself. As others have noted, the Supreme Court seems not to trust the judgment of Congress or the lower courts and frequently brushes aside their decisions.
All courts, not just the Supreme Court, exist in the context of a social agreement. Courts are entrusted to sort out the issues and make decisions that most of us consider fair and equitable. But in many ways the current Court seems to have lost touch with the social realities of today’s world. Does anybody really believe that large sums of money contributed to political campaigns by wealthy donors and/or corporations are without influence? Does anybody believe that women have not practiced abortion, legally or illegally and often with dire consequences, throughout recorded history? The list of the Court’s fantastic thinking is quite long. There is a large body of commentary on the Supreme Court in the legal literature, much of it critical, but as Chemerinsky points out/2 very little of it filters through to the public. The Justices may hold life tenure, but they read the newspapers; an informed public is an important check on their excesses. Linda Greenhouse’s book is an important contribution to helping all of us understand some of what’s going on.
1/ https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/19/us...
2/ Edwin Chemerinsky, Worse Than Nothing: The Dangerous Fallacy of Originalism. Yale, 2022.
January 19, 2022
Since the end of my favorite SCOTUS podcast I've been looking for a similarly engaging way to keep up with the court. This book was not what I'd hoped it would be.
On the positive side, this book discusses a lot of the key cases the court went through and gives quite a bit of information out in a relatively short book.
On the negative side, the organization is awful. The nature of SC cases is that they exist for long periods of time. There are petitions, oral arguments and decisions that could easily stretch out 8 months from beginning to end. Organizing this book in a month by month fashion causes the narrative to loop back on itself. Facts and opinions about the same topic are repeated multiple times in a way that caused me to doubt "Didn't I just read that 20 pages ago?"
The other huge negative to this book is that the author has predetermined good guys and bad guys in ways that are both heavy-handed and petty. While reducing justices to their ideological tags is far from a new idea Greenhouse is unwilling to see any nuance. Conservatives bad, liberals good. When decisions don't match party lines, she seems legitimately confused. This extends to the way she writes about certain people. One of the most petty things I've ever seen is how she repeatedly includes ungrammatical quotes from her enemies with a [sic]. See, they can't possibly be right! They don't talk good! But as the author, you're the one who chooses the quotes. I'm sure this was intended to be a subtle dig at her targets, but it just comes off as sad.
The writing is newspaper quality. I just wish the organization and tone could have matched the promise of the project.
On the positive side, this book discusses a lot of the key cases the court went through and gives quite a bit of information out in a relatively short book.
On the negative side, the organization is awful. The nature of SC cases is that they exist for long periods of time. There are petitions, oral arguments and decisions that could easily stretch out 8 months from beginning to end. Organizing this book in a month by month fashion causes the narrative to loop back on itself. Facts and opinions about the same topic are repeated multiple times in a way that caused me to doubt "Didn't I just read that 20 pages ago?"
The other huge negative to this book is that the author has predetermined good guys and bad guys in ways that are both heavy-handed and petty. While reducing justices to their ideological tags is far from a new idea Greenhouse is unwilling to see any nuance. Conservatives bad, liberals good. When decisions don't match party lines, she seems legitimately confused. This extends to the way she writes about certain people. One of the most petty things I've ever seen is how she repeatedly includes ungrammatical quotes from her enemies with a [sic]. See, they can't possibly be right! They don't talk good! But as the author, you're the one who chooses the quotes. I'm sure this was intended to be a subtle dig at her targets, but it just comes off as sad.
The writing is newspaper quality. I just wish the organization and tone could have matched the promise of the project.
January 24, 2022
A thirteen month documentary piece about the Supreme Court beginning in the month prior to RBG’s death, and ending in the summer is 2021. The author is a Yale law professor and has been studying and reporting for The NY Times about the Court for more than forty years, so she *really* knows the intricacies of how the Court functions internally, as well as the decades of cases they’ve heard and the precedents they’ve set or shifted.
The cover and title are a bit over dramatic, as it becomes quite clear throughout her writing that Justice Barrett, while incredibly conservative, is maybe not quite the villain the dust jacket would have you believe. That title lands squarely with Justice Alito and oooooooooohhhhh boyyyyyyyy is he an actual danger to keeping our democracy together. (Runner up goes to Justice Gorsuch.)
Each chapter covers one of the thirteen months, and my attention started waning in January of 2021. The text, to me, felt like it could have used more time with an editor. There became a lot of repetition midway through the book. (Explaining the same cases multiple times, re-visiting previously mentioned back story, etc.) Maybe some of that repetition would be helpful if you were reading the chapters with long breaks in between each section, but I was reading over the course of a week and it got old.
The cover and title are a bit over dramatic, as it becomes quite clear throughout her writing that Justice Barrett, while incredibly conservative, is maybe not quite the villain the dust jacket would have you believe. That title lands squarely with Justice Alito and oooooooooohhhhh boyyyyyyyy is he an actual danger to keeping our democracy together. (Runner up goes to Justice Gorsuch.)
Each chapter covers one of the thirteen months, and my attention started waning in January of 2021. The text, to me, felt like it could have used more time with an editor. There became a lot of repetition midway through the book. (Explaining the same cases multiple times, re-visiting previously mentioned back story, etc.) Maybe some of that repetition would be helpful if you were reading the chapters with long breaks in between each section, but I was reading over the course of a week and it got old.
May 28, 2023
Don't let the title fool you. This brief and engaging volume is far more than a survey of US Supreme Court activity for the 12-month period following the death of Justice RBG. In the fashion that those of us who know Greenhouse from her covering the Court for the NY Times, Greenhouse surveys the major cases, shows us how these cases fit into a definable trend, give us some things to be very concerned about in the way the law has developed, and provides ample reason to put up our guard against the GOP's largely successful effort to politicize the Court, something that should make all worry and vote.
I am thankful that there are good writers who know how to analyze and then evaluate Supreme Court decisions. Greenhouse is the best of the lot.
I am thankful that there are good writers who know how to analyze and then evaluate Supreme Court decisions. Greenhouse is the best of the lot.
March 9, 2023
Masterfully written, excellent insight and background. Great choice for understanding current dynamics at the Court.
The major problem: repetitiveness. Greenhouse acknowledged at the end that she had written each chapter in real time, with no going back. It showed. Several of the context sections, references, and even specific quotes appeared over and over. While strong analysis, the repetition occasionally veered on the frustrating.
The major problem: repetitiveness. Greenhouse acknowledged at the end that she had written each chapter in real time, with no going back. It showed. Several of the context sections, references, and even specific quotes appeared over and over. While strong analysis, the repetition occasionally veered on the frustrating.
December 14, 2021
Started and ended with a bang but got bogged down in legalese in the middle and was oddly repetitive. It didn't stop me from being alarmed and dismayed, though, at just how deeply entrenched in politics and ideology the Supreme Court justices have become, despite their protestations. It makes you wonder if the American democratic experiment stands any chance of surviving.
February 10, 2022
As I beging writing this review, I must first confess two biases. One, I'm a bit of a Supreme Court geek, having worked there for three and a half terms in my youth. Two, I'm left of center politically. Given these two facts, I consider this book a riveting, yet sad and disappointing tale of the sudden rightward shift of this institution I've loved for more than 30 years.
Ms. Greenhouse outlines this shift in her detailed and damning story of the 2020-2021 term. Per the author's account, Justices regularly use chicanery and legal sleight-of-hand to weaken long-held precedents, while bringing forward cases on dubious ground relative to the concept of stare decisis that is supposed to guide the Court's decision making. She outlines several cases where Justices, mostly on the right side of the political divide, have contradicted precedent, granted certiorari for tangentially-related cases to chip away at other precedents, and even laid out roadmaps for their kindred spirits to bring forward similar cases that will knowingly weaken two of our country's most closely-held rights: the right to vote and the right for a woman to obtain an abortion.
Greenhouse names case after case where the conservative Justices, including the three appointed by President Trump, have pushed the Court dramatically to the right, beyond the point where public opinion polls suggest the majority of the country's beliiefs rest. For example, public opinion poll after poll clearly demonstrates a large and solid majority of Americans support the idea of safe and legal abortion, myself included.
Regardless, the author shows strategic mainpulation by the conservative Justices, including the Chief Justice, to hear and decide cases, purposefully she credibly argues, to limit and restrict womens' access to this medical procedure. Whether you support abortion or not, you should be concerned that Justices of the Supreme Court are ignoring precedent, contradicting their own writing in previous decisions and playing loose with the rules to weaken the legal framework of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of SE PA v. Casey, the two cases upon which most of current abortion jurisprudence lie.
These conservative Justices, per the author's account, purposefulyy hear and decide cases that weaken preccedents for issues they didn't support personally and have been waiting for years to overturn. Greenhouse singles out Justice Alito as the biggest manipulator of this sort. The Chief Justice is equally culpable by her account. His public mien is one of an institutionalist and now, a calming influence for the rightward-shifting Court. Greenhouse blows both of those perceptions out of the water.
The story she paints is one that makes me shudder and question the motives of the men and now one woman, who hold the majority on the Court. The Roberts Court has already gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act (section 5) on spurious grounds and decided other cases that have weakened the second pillar (section 2), weakening the protections for voting rights of minority and under-represented voters. The Alabama decision this week is another sad example of this trend.
If it difficult not to see a direct line between these Court decisions and the current effort of Republicans in state houses across the country to manipulate election and voting laws in favor of their minority viewpoints. The Court has given many of them the imprimatur to keep hold of political power illegally - at least by former standards - well beyond what public opinion polls suggest is their level of support among registered voters.
Lest anybody think I only recommend this book because the author's political perception of the Court appears to mesh with mine, take a breath. I'd still encourage you to read this book. It provides the reader a good look at the backroom give and take that goes into granting or not granting certiorari to hear particular cases. It also shines a bright light on the Court's "shadow docket" where the decison not to hear a case can have just as powerful an effect on subsequent case law (and precedent) as agreeing to hear one.
Despite the public veneer of collegiality, Greenhouse provides multiple examples to illustrates the increasing trend among the Justices to take shots at each other with the language they use in their opinions, concurrences, and dissents on a particular case. She identifies Justice Gorsuch as a particularly adept bridge burner in this manner.
I really enjoyed this book, just as I have enjoyed reading Linda Greenhouse's coverage of the Court for many, many years in the NY Times. The only reason I don't give it the highest rating is because the narrative gets a little hard to follow in places. Tthe descriptions of the legal strategy behind some of these cases is difficult for a layman like me to follow. It gets a little deep in places, requiring me to reread several passages to make sure I understood the concepts.
Overall, I highly recommend this book, the latest in a line of behind-the-scenes deep dives into the Court ala Woodward & Bernstein, Toobin, Lazarus, et al.. For me, it's a scary tale of what's to come. For conservatives, it's Happy Days Are Here Again! Regardless, we both can learn a lot by reading Ms. Greenhouse's well-told tale.
Ms. Greenhouse outlines this shift in her detailed and damning story of the 2020-2021 term. Per the author's account, Justices regularly use chicanery and legal sleight-of-hand to weaken long-held precedents, while bringing forward cases on dubious ground relative to the concept of stare decisis that is supposed to guide the Court's decision making. She outlines several cases where Justices, mostly on the right side of the political divide, have contradicted precedent, granted certiorari for tangentially-related cases to chip away at other precedents, and even laid out roadmaps for their kindred spirits to bring forward similar cases that will knowingly weaken two of our country's most closely-held rights: the right to vote and the right for a woman to obtain an abortion.
Greenhouse names case after case where the conservative Justices, including the three appointed by President Trump, have pushed the Court dramatically to the right, beyond the point where public opinion polls suggest the majority of the country's beliiefs rest. For example, public opinion poll after poll clearly demonstrates a large and solid majority of Americans support the idea of safe and legal abortion, myself included.
Regardless, the author shows strategic mainpulation by the conservative Justices, including the Chief Justice, to hear and decide cases, purposefully she credibly argues, to limit and restrict womens' access to this medical procedure. Whether you support abortion or not, you should be concerned that Justices of the Supreme Court are ignoring precedent, contradicting their own writing in previous decisions and playing loose with the rules to weaken the legal framework of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of SE PA v. Casey, the two cases upon which most of current abortion jurisprudence lie.
These conservative Justices, per the author's account, purposefulyy hear and decide cases that weaken preccedents for issues they didn't support personally and have been waiting for years to overturn. Greenhouse singles out Justice Alito as the biggest manipulator of this sort. The Chief Justice is equally culpable by her account. His public mien is one of an institutionalist and now, a calming influence for the rightward-shifting Court. Greenhouse blows both of those perceptions out of the water.
The story she paints is one that makes me shudder and question the motives of the men and now one woman, who hold the majority on the Court. The Roberts Court has already gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act (section 5) on spurious grounds and decided other cases that have weakened the second pillar (section 2), weakening the protections for voting rights of minority and under-represented voters. The Alabama decision this week is another sad example of this trend.
If it difficult not to see a direct line between these Court decisions and the current effort of Republicans in state houses across the country to manipulate election and voting laws in favor of their minority viewpoints. The Court has given many of them the imprimatur to keep hold of political power illegally - at least by former standards - well beyond what public opinion polls suggest is their level of support among registered voters.
Lest anybody think I only recommend this book because the author's political perception of the Court appears to mesh with mine, take a breath. I'd still encourage you to read this book. It provides the reader a good look at the backroom give and take that goes into granting or not granting certiorari to hear particular cases. It also shines a bright light on the Court's "shadow docket" where the decison not to hear a case can have just as powerful an effect on subsequent case law (and precedent) as agreeing to hear one.
Despite the public veneer of collegiality, Greenhouse provides multiple examples to illustrates the increasing trend among the Justices to take shots at each other with the language they use in their opinions, concurrences, and dissents on a particular case. She identifies Justice Gorsuch as a particularly adept bridge burner in this manner.
I really enjoyed this book, just as I have enjoyed reading Linda Greenhouse's coverage of the Court for many, many years in the NY Times. The only reason I don't give it the highest rating is because the narrative gets a little hard to follow in places. Tthe descriptions of the legal strategy behind some of these cases is difficult for a layman like me to follow. It gets a little deep in places, requiring me to reread several passages to make sure I understood the concepts.
Overall, I highly recommend this book, the latest in a line of behind-the-scenes deep dives into the Court ala Woodward & Bernstein, Toobin, Lazarus, et al.. For me, it's a scary tale of what's to come. For conservatives, it's Happy Days Are Here Again! Regardless, we both can learn a lot by reading Ms. Greenhouse's well-told tale.
March 19, 2022
The book focused on the Supreme Court's ruling during a period of 13 months and showed how Justices used the shadow docket to push their political agenda. The book was oddly repetitious in parts. Sadly, it reinforced my perception on how political the Supreme Court has become and how the Justices religious backgrounds have influenced their decisions.
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