Radicals in Robes: Why Extreme Right-Wing Courts Are Wrong for America - Hardcover

Sunstein, Cass R.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0465083269 ISBN 13: 9780465083268

Publisher: Basic Books, 2005

Synopsis

Most people think that the Supreme Court has a rough balance between left and right. This is a myth; in fact the justices once considered right-wing have now taken the mantle of the Court's moderates, and the liberal element has all but disappeared. Most people also think that judicial activism is solely a liberal movement. This is also a myth; since William Rehnquist was confirmed as Chief Justice in 1986, the Supreme Court has engaged in an unprecedented record of judicial activism. These two factors are feeding a movement to restore what many conservatives call "The Constitution in Exile," by which they mean the Constitution as it existed before the Roosevelt administration. Radicals in Robes explains what the restoration of this constitutional vision would mean. It would mean the end of the FCC, the SEC, the EPA, and every other federal agency that enacts regulations that have the force of law. It would mean that the clause of the First Amendment that says that Congress may make no law "respecting an establishment of religion" would be turned on its head. Marriage laws and many other familiar areas of modern life are all in the sights of this conservative movement. Radicals in Robes takes judicial philosophy out of the law schools and shows what it means when it intersects partisan politics. It pulls away the veil of rhetoric from a dangerous and radical right-wing movement and issues a strong and passionate warning about what conservatives really intend. One of the most respected legal theorists in the country, Cass R. Sunstein here issues a warning of compelling concern to us all.

About this title

About the Author

Cass R. Sunstein is Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Chicago Law School and a contributing editor at The New Republic and the American Prospect . He has testified before Congress on numerous occasions and has contributed as well to such publications as the New York Times , the Los Angeles Times , and the Washington Post . His numerous books include Republic.com , Risk and Reason , Laws of Fear , and The Second Bill of Rights . He lives in Chicago, Illinois.

From the Back Cover

Advance Praise for Radicals in Robes

"Radicals in Robes explains why it is important to prevent the right-wing takeover of the federal judiciary. Cass Sunstein embeds his argument within a more general theory of judicial 'minimalism' that would limit the further politicization of judicial appointments. It is an important argument, and he presents it well." -- Sanford Levinson, author of Wrestling with Diversity

"In an angry age too easily seduced by partisan aggressiveness and simple-minded slogans, Cass R. Sunstein, one of our country's finest legal scholars, argues for a constitutional law based on common sense, patience, modesty, and restraint. These are virtues we need now more than ever." -- Jack M. Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment, Yale Law School, author of The Laws of Change

"This book clarifies the stakes in current struggles over the role of courts in American democracy. For all those seeking a path between the extremes of old judicial liberalism and the new 'fundamentalist' counterrevolution, Cass R. Sunstein offers one here, and he does so with the energy, clarity, and scholarly commitment for which he has become so widely known." -- Richard Pildes, Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law, NYU School of Law

Reviews

In this timely and keen analysis of how judges interpret the Constitution today, Sunstein, a University of Chicago law professor and New Republic contributor, espouses what he calls a "minimalist" approach that respects precedent and takes only small-scale steps forward, and lashes out at the "fundamentalism" practiced by extreme conservative judges. Legal fundamentalists profess to base their interpretations on the meanings ascribed to the Constitution by the original ratifiers. But in many respects, Sunstein says, fundamentalists ignore, or misread, the history they claim to venerate. Further, he says many fundamentalist positions would undermine liberties Americans have come to value—rights that one fundamentalist judge, offering the example of the right to privacy, says were created out of whole cloth by the Supreme Court. For Sunstein, capitulation to the fundamentalists could lead to state (but not federal) establishment of religion, to the elimination of a protected right to privacy and to invalidation of most environmental regulations. We should be skeptical, the author insists, when political ideology seems to dictate judges' constitutional doctrine. This compressed book covers all the hot-button constitutional issues in 10 short, plainly written chapters. Americans monitoring the upcoming Senate deliberations over Bush's nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court will want to bear in mind the arguments Sunstein so trenchantly presents.
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Sunstein, legal theorist and law professor, offers an analytical framework to examine changes in the U.S. Supreme Court that threaten the American legal system. He describes the four dominant approaches to constitutional debate: perfectionism, often associated with a liberal view and the Warren Court; majoritarianism, associated with reducing the role of the court by deferring judgment to elected representatives; minimalism, which advocates restraint and is leery of movement judges; and fundamentalism, which is tied to the original understanding of the Constitution. Sunstein favors minimalism and is fearful of the trend he sees toward fundamentalism. This work is unique in that it exposes a judicial activism on the Right that seeks to restore the "real" Constitution, perceived to be in exile since President Roosevelt's New Deal. This extreme perspective and the actions of applied fundamentalists lend the title of this book. It is within this context that Sunstein suggests that both reasoned conservatives, liberals, and others who care about the constitutional state of America can and should support the prior mentioned minimalist approach, which is centered in judicial restraint. Vernon Ford
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0465083269
• ISBN 13: 9780465083268
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304