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Intro -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction. Three Stories about Courts -- Part I. Rights on the Left, and Rights on the Right -- One. Rights on the Left -- Two. Rights on the Right -- Part II. Courts, Democracy, and Policy Change -- Three. Are Judges Umpires? -- Four. Are Judges Tyrants? -- Five. Are Judges Sideshows? -- Conclusion. Judicial Politics in Polarized Times -- Appendix A. Coding Procedures for Polarization Analysis -- Notes -- References -- Index.

This "important and timely discussion of judicial politics" sheds light on America's courts as they rule on abortion, gay rights, gun rights, and more (Choice). When the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, some saw the decision as a textbook example of neutral judicial decision making, noting that a Republican Chief Justice joined the Court's Democratic appointees in their vote. Others decried the decision as an example of partisan justice citing a Republican bloc of Court appointees who voted to strike the statute down. Still others argued that the ACA's fate ultimately hinged not on the Court but on the outcome of the 2012 election. These interpretations reflect larger shifts in judicial politics that have emerged in today's increasingly polarized America. Are judges neutral legal umpires, unaccountable partisan activists, or political actors whose decisions conform to'rather than challenge'the democratic will' Drawing on a sweeping survey of hot-button litigation'on abortion, affirmative action, gay rights, and gun rights'across the Clinton, Bush, and Obama eras, Thomas M. Keck argues that, while each of these perspectives has merit, each is also misleading. Despite judges' claims, actual legal decisions are not the politically neutral products of disembodied legal texts. But neither are judges "tyrants in robes," undermining democratic values by imposing their own preferences. Just as often, judges and the public seem to be pushing in the same direction. As for the argument that the courts are powerless institutions, Keck shows that their decisions have profound political effects. And, while advocates on both the left and right use litigation to achieve their ends, neither side has consistently won. Ultimately, Keck argues, judges respond not simply as umpires, activists, or political actors, but in light of distinctive judicial values and practices

When conservatives took control of the federal judiciary in the 1980s, it was widely assumed that they would reverse the landmark rights-protecting precedents set by the Warren Court and replace them with a broad commitment to judicial restraint. Instead, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice William Rehnquist has reaffirmed most of those liberal decisions while creating its own brand of conservative judicial activism. Ranging from 1937 to the present, The Most Activist Supreme Court in History traces the legal and political forces that have shaped the modern Court. Thomas M. Keck argues that t.

AbstractThis paper assesses the performance of the Supreme Court as democratic guardrail during five prior periods of democratic crisis in the United States. It finds that most such periods witnessed efforts by the governing regime to entrench themselves in power, and that the Court has rarely provided an effective check on such democratic abuses. Rather than serving as a reliable democratic guardrail, the Court has regularly exercised what Dixon and Landau call "weak‐form abusive judicial review"; that is, it has declined to check attacks on democracy emerging from other centers of power. On one occasion, the Court has undermined democracy even more directly via "strong‐form abusive judicial review"; that is, the Court itself attacked key democratic guardrails. This historical record provides a helpful baseline for evaluating the Court's performance during the Trump era, when it has taken actions that both protect and undermine democratic health. Conflicting signs indicate that the Court is playing a more democracy‐protective role than most of its predecessors in some respects, but a more democracy‐undermining role in others. As such, it is too soon to say with confidence whether the contemporary Court will be remembered, on balance, for resolving or exacerbating a system‐threatening constitutional crisis.