Judge Sonia Sotomayor has survived a grueling public confirmation hearing, but a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian debates the excessive power we grant Supreme Court justices in a new book.
Book Beast studies “Packing the Court” by James MacGregor Burns, a book revisiting the age-old argument that Supreme Court justices have unchecked power. These jurists never face an election, and Burns analyzes the history of Supreme Court partisanship.
Here’s more from the review: “[The book] is a detail-laden polemic about the perils of judicial power, which he sees as fundamentally antidemocratic because the justices are insulated from public accountability at the ballot box. It is an old, familiar argument that deserves a fresh look with the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor.”