Bad Glacier

I just finished reading The Center Holds, by James F. Simon. It’s a look at the Rehnquist Court and how it hasn’t been able to fully realize the goals of Rehnquist, Reagan, Bush (the first), and other conservatives. The book is divided up into sections on race, abortion, criminal cases, and First Amendment law, and in each, Simon describes how Rehnquist was, time after time, unable to pull together a majority of the Court for his most desired postion. The centrist Justices end up carving out narrow exceptions and retaining liberal precedents, rather than overturning decisions and offering sweeping opinions, as the ultra-conservatives seem to want.

In each section, Simon looks at several cases, using drafts of opinions, oral arguments, and conference notes from several retired Justices to examine the process by which the Court arrived at a certain opinion, while working short biographies of the Justices in with the cases to keep things interesting. The legal terms are all well-explained and discussion seems to be aimed at laymen (nothing seemed too confusing to me).

It’s about ten years old, so it’s not quite up to date, but it’s incredibly interesting stuff. I think my Supreme Court obsession is alive and growing.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 12th, 2005 at 9:00 am and is filed under Books, Law!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.