Right Wing Justice: The Conservative Campaign to Take Over the Courts (Nation Books) - Softcover

Schwartz, Herman

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1560255668 ISBN 13: 9781560255666

Publisher: Nation Books, 2004

Synopsis

Right Wing Justice raises the alarm about the creeping conservative campaign to "pack" America's courts with judges more identified with their ideological affiliation than their skill or regard for the Constitution. The consequence is that the rule of law is taking a terrific beating from the Supreme Court. Who can forget the debacle of Election 2000? But the consequences of the campaign go far deeper than that, impinging on the daily lives of ordinary Americans who are at the receiving end of attempts to overturn or erode Supreme Court rulings on abortion, school prayer, civil rights, criminal justice, and economic regulation. As the author shows, the problem does not end at the Supreme Court—it filters down to the lowers courts and circuits. Right Wing Justice gives an alarming account of how this has come to pass over the last two decades, how conservative activists hatched this strategy in the 1960s only to see it really come of age during the Reagan revolution and the successive Republican administrations. Combining a scholar's sense of history with the immediacy of eyewitness testimony, Right Wing Justice will come not only as a sobering reading to many concerned Americans—but also as a call to wake-up.

About this title

About the Author

Herman Schwartz is professor at the Washington College of Law at American University.

Reviews

A fact-filled volume that attempts to cast aspersions on the conservative movement's perceived attempt to "pack" America's federal court system with ideologically "pure" right-wing justices. Schwartz is the author of Packing the Court (1988) and The Struggle for Constitutional Justice in Post-Communist Europe (2002). After an informative summary of the history of America's courts from 1787 to 1980, which demonstrates that a "powerful politically shaped and oriented judiciary is nothing new," Schwartz analyzes Reagan's judicial strategy (a systematic ideological screening system); Bush One's brief tenure (which left federal judgeships seated by 80 percent Republicans); the eight-year Clinton Democratic "inter-regnum" (an unfortunate time, from Schwartz's point of view, since Clinton did not consider judicial nominations to be an important political tool); and, finally, Bush Two (whose judicial legal advisors' mantra was "no more Souters," meaning no more conservatives who turn liberal). Schwartz's description of the obstructionist goings-on in Congress is meant to buttress his argument but has the unwitting result of demonstrating the disruptive political machinations on both sides of the aisle. Nevertheless, an invaluable account for students of government. Allen Weakland
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Nation Books
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1560255668
• ISBN 13: 9781560255666
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 432