Lawrence Baum - The Supreme Court. Thirteenth Edition

Thirteenth Edition

To my students

Thirteenth Edition

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Copyright 2019 by CQ Press, an Imprint of SAGE Publications, Inc. CQ Press is a registered trademark of Congressional Quarterly Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Baum, Lawrence, author.

Title: The Supreme Court / Lawrence Baum, Ohio State University.

Description: Thirteenth edition. | Washington, D.C. : CQ Press, a division of Sage, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018016906 | ISBN 9781544327389 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: United States. Supreme Court. | Constitutional lawUnited States. | Courts of last resortUnited States. | Judicial reviewUnited States.

Classification: LCC KF8742 .B35 2019 | DDC 347.73/26dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018016906

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Throughout its history, the Supreme Court has attracted attention from people who care about government and politics. That attention has grown in recent years, in part because of the impact of partisan and ideological polarization on the Court. Indeed, the fierce battle over appointment of a successor to Justice Antonin Scalia after his death early in 2016 became a major issue in the presidential election that year.

Once Neil Gorsuch was appointed in 2017 to succeed Scalia, the key question for observers of the Court was the directions that the Court with its new justice would take in its decisions. That question brought additional interest in 2018 to the annual ritual of waiting for the major decisions that the Court issues at the end of its annual term in June.

That interest was fully justified. In the last two weeks of the term, the Court reached decisions on several major issues, including the collection of sales taxes on Internet purchases, government tracking of peoples locations through records generated by cell phones, and an order by President Trump that restricted travel to the U.S. by citizens of certain countries. Justice Gorsuch was part of a 54 majority in some key decisions that divided the justices along ideological and party lines.

The biggest news of all came shortly after the Court issued its final decisions, when Justice Anthony Kennedy announced that he would retire at the end of July. Because Kennedy had been the most moderate of the Courts five conservative justices, his impending retirement gave President Trump an opportunity to establish a more clear-cut conservative majority on the Court. Two weeks later, the president announced that his nominee for Kennedys seat was Brett Kavanaugh, a federal court of appeals judge who was generally thought to be strongly conservative in his views about legal issues.

Because of the high stakes of this nomination for politics and policy, it triggered a large-scale battle over Senate confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh. Although the confirmation vote had not yet occurred when this book was completed, the existence of a slim Republican majority in the Senate made it very likely that Kavanaugh would be confirmed. And even if Kavanaugh was defeated, only an unexpected Democratic majority in the Senate after the 2018 elections could prevent the president from putting another strong conservative on the Court in Kavanaughs place. In turn, a more conservative Court was likely to shift the legal rules on some issues that affect the lives of many people and the collective life of the nation.

The Courts importance makes it understandable that it receives so much attention. But that attention is not fully matched by understanding of the Court. It is a complicated institution, one that is more difficult to comprehend than the other branches of government. As a result, people with great interest in American government and politicseven some who are experts in most aspects of that fieldoften have only limited knowledge of the Court.

I have written this book to provide a better understanding of the Supreme Court. The book is intended to serve as a short but comprehensive guide to the Court, both for readers who already know much about the Court and for those who have a more limited sense of it. I discuss how the Court functions, the work that it does, and the effects of its rulings on the lives of people in the United States. And I probe explanations of the decisions that the Court and its justices make, of actions by other people and groups that affect the Court, and of the Courts impact on government and society.

The book discusses the Courts history in order to provide needed perspective, but its primary concern is the current era. In discussing topics such as the selection of justices and the substance of the Courts decisions, I give particular attention to developments that shape todays Court. Some important developments are related to the growth in polarization. One effect of that polarization is the increasing unwillingness of senators to support confirmation of nominees to the Court who are appointed by a president from the opposing party. Another effect is the division of the Court since 2010 along ideological lines that coincide with party lines, a division that seems natural but one that has no parallel in the Courts prior history.

The books first chapter introduces the Supreme Court. In this chapter, I discuss the Courts role in general terms, examine its place in the judicial system, analyze the Court as an institution, and present a brief summary of its history.

Each of the other chapters deals with an important aspect of the Court. discusses how cases reach the Court through the actions of parties to cases, the lawyers who represent them, interest groups, and the federal government in its special role. The chapter then considers how and why the Court selects the small number of cases that it will fully consider and decide.