The Most Dangerous Branch: Inside the Supreme Court in the Age of Trump

This is a substantial analysis of essentially the Roberts Court (2005 to the present), although the author sometimes dips back into earlier history to discuss a point. It is divided into two parts: Characters and Cases. The author's primary thesis is that the Court has been too active in too many different areas and usurped the prerogatives of the other two branches, especially Congress, thereby imperiling American democracy. The heroes of the book are not any of the current justices particularly, but essentially the great scholars and judges of the past who argued for a more restrained Court. These individuals include Justices Holmes, Frankfurter and Brandeis, Learned Hand, as well as especially the late scholar Alexander Bickel (especially his "The Least Dangerous Branch").The individual portraits of the Justices enable the reader to appreciate their individual personalities and how they interact together. The author is critical of several of the Justices: Gorsuch, Roberts, and especially Kennedy who gets a lot of critical attention. This is because for many key years, Kennedy was the swing vote shifting back and forth between the conservative and liberal "flanks" of Justices. The author is unsparing in criticizing Kennedy for lustfully embracing opportunities to plunge into new areas such as the 1965 Voting Rights Act and gay marriage. I was surprised to see that the author has not jumped onto the Justice Ginsberg bandwagon, despite her positive reviews from the press and in other books. Scalia as well does not play a prominent role in the author's assessment. His evaluations of Breyer and Kagan are positive, seeing Breyer as focusing on the functioning of democratic government while Kagan is interested in doctrinaire arguments.Things get really interesting when the author discusses individual cases in the second part of the book. His chapter on the "Sleeping Giant" is a useful compact history of the major trends in the Court's history. The author's primary yardstick for evaluating cases if whether he believes the Court should even have taken them on for decision. For example, he is almost livid in attacking Roe v. Wade, which "snubbed" state legislatures and ever after has generated intense hostility toward the Court. The greatest self-inflicted wound is Bush v. Gore, where the Court ignored a controlling Congressional statute in order to rule the day. Next in line are the Heller second amendment decision, the 1965 Voting Rights Act case, Citizens United's take on the campaign finance laws, and the gay marriage decision. All these decisions, in the author's opinion, involved the Court rushing into areas where it really had no business or need to intervene. The Court has invaded these areas because it could, and there is no indication that the Court will not continue this undermining of democracy in the future. Obviously, some readers will surely disagree that some of these cases were ill-advised and unnecessary for decision.The epilogue is interesting for the author's observations about Roberts' role in the Obamacare decision and the revival of the Commerce Clause as a restraint on federal power. The narrative is supported by 42 pages of notes, a table of cases, and an index. Whether or not you agree with the author's overwhelming thesis, a reader will learn a good deal about the Court from this volume. It is especially gratifying for me to see Alex Bickel resume the spotlight (he died far too young in 1974), and perhaps he can once again sharpen our judgments about the Court.

Modern review of the Court. Best read by people who have already delved into the history of the Supreme Court for context. (E.g., a casual reader may be flummoxed by the mention of the importance of say, the Lochner era, and the Carolene Products case’s important footnote.) Eminently readable.

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This book is a complaint against the Supreme Court for not being as far to the left as Kaplan would have it. And he loves to get into the personalities on the Court. He takes every opportunity to savage the late Justice Scalia and his "new" rights of the Second Amendment. He loves to promote Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who, by the way, thinks South Africa has a constitution superior to ours. He really promotes Justice Sotomayer, which is hilarious because Obama was counseled that it would be easy to find better jurists. Obama's urge to "make history" won out, however, and we got a "wise Latina."It is an eye opener, though, when you read it and realize how bad it can get it the political left get their way in our country. One last thing. Look up! Don't know what that means? Ask your Christian neighbor...

The Most Dangerous Branch: Inside the Supreme Court's Assault on the Constitution by David Kaplan, is just about the most timely book I've ever read. Given the events surrounding the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to take Justice Anthony Kennedy"s seat on the Supreme Court bench and all the Sturm und Drang that has occurred, this book I think is a must read. This book was published just before the nomination was announced and the author turned out to be quite prescient.The introduction of the book describes the unscheduled visit made by Justice Kennedy to the White House to see President Trump and tender his resignation from the Supreme Court bench. The prologue reviews the passing of Justice Antonin Scalia and the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to take Justice Scalia's seat on the Supreme Court bench.The book has two main parts: the first part introduces us to the Supreme Court building and then to the Chief Justice and the other Justices. They are billed as the "characters." The author discusses the justices' backgrounds, their personalities, their judicial philosophies, and how they interacted with one another. The author also advances his contention the Court has strayed far beyond its original mandate into the political arena. That the Court is deciding issues that should be addressed by Congress.The second part of the book is "Cases" and it discusses the decisions from a number of cases and their impacts on the citizenry and the country. The cases also come in for their turn whether the Court should or should not have decided them. Was it a political intrusion?The writing is easy to understand and, as I said earlier, the book could not be more timely. Get the book and read it - you will have a much better understanding of the events occurring in Washinton, D.C.