Paul D Moreno

--A newly revised and updated version of the 2008 revised edition with updated introduction, four new chapters. --The editors were encouraged to update this edition with issues of diversity in mind. They have done so by including the expertise of more women and people of color. Also includes suggestions for further reading. --The audience for the work is primarily scholarly, though the work does lend itself to classroom discussion and course adoption as well. Readers would include legal scholars, legal anthropologists, and those who work in issues of modern rights and social justice.

"Paul Moreno's "How the Court Became Supreme" explains how the United States Supreme Court turned itself into the most powerful court the world has ever seen. It is supreme today not only within the judicial branch but over the legislative and executive branches. Indeed, the modern Court has even acquired the power to choose Presidents, as it effectively did in Bush v. Gore. Every June, as the Court nears the end of its term and delivers anticipated decisions, every major media outlet in the nation covers the results and disseminates its rulings. A generation ago, by contrast, hardly anybody knew or cared about the Court's opening or closing. Before 1987, nearly all nominees to the Court sailed through confirmation hearings, often with little or no notice from the American public. When a vacancy occurs today, of course, an epic political bloodbath is likely to ensue. In another sign of the Court's overarching importance, who a presidential nominee is likely to appoint has become a paramount issue in voters' minds. In 2016, for example, Donald Trump took the extraordinary step of providing a list of potential Court nominees because, as he said, voters consider the appointing of Justices among the President's most important functions. Fifty years ago, such a ploy would have been both unthinkable and unnecessary. Today, both political parties complain about what they perceive as judicial supremacy. However, neither acknowledge what precisely that means or how it happened. Tracing the long history of the Court's expansion in power and importance, Moreno suggests that we cannot blame the Constitution itself since nothing might surprise the Founders more than the imperial judiciary. Their Constitution contained a multitude of safeguards to prevent judicial supremacy, and those safeguards remain today, but most have fallen into a state of disuse. Nor is judicial review to blame, since if the people want the Court to protect constitutional limits against the usurpations of the elected branches, then such authority must remain in the hands of the Court. It only becomes a problem-a threat rather than an aid to constitutional democracy-when the Court itself exercises legislative or executive power under what many see as the guise of judicial review. "How the Court Became Supreme" tells the story of the origin and development of that problem, offering solutions that might push the Court toward restoration of its more traditional role in our constitutional republic"--

The irreducibly constitutional nature of the Civil War's prelude and legacy is the focus of this absorbing collection of nine essays by a diversity of political theorists and historians. The contributors examine key constitutional developments leading up to the war, the crucial role of Abraham Lincoln's statesmanship, and how the constitutional aspects of the war and Reconstruction endured in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This thoughtful, informative volume covers a wide range of topics: from George Washington's conception of the Union and his fears for its future to Martin Van Buren's state-centered, anti-secessionist federalism; from Lincoln's approach to citizenship for African Americans to Woodrow Wilson's attempt to appropriate Lincoln for the goals of Progressivism. Each essay zeroes in on the constitutional causes or consequences of the war and emphasizes how constitutional principles shape political activity. Accordingly, important figures, disputes, and judicial decisions are placed within the broader context of the constitutional system to explain how ideas and institutions, independently and in dialogue with the courts, have oriented political action and shaped events over time.

This essay tells the story of the development of two of the most significant and controversial entitlement programs in twentieth-century U.S. history-collective bargaining and affirmative action. It focuses on the nexus between them-how New Deal empowerment of labor unions contributed to racial discrimination, and thus fed the Great Society race-based programs of affirmative action. The evolving relationship between the courts and the bureaucracies is emphasized, particularly how the judiciary went from an obstacle to an enabler of the entitlement state.