For decades, Pulitzer Prize-winner James MacGregor Burns has been one of the great masters of the study of power and leadership in America, and he now turns his eye to an institution of government he believes has become more powerful, and more partisan, than the founding fathers ever intended — the Supreme Court.
Much as we would like to believe that the Court remains aloof from ideological politics, “Packing the Court: The Rise of Judicial Power and the Coming Crisis of the Supreme Court” reveals how often justices behave like politicians in robes. They have gone beyond interpreting the rules — they have come to create them.
The term “packing the court” calls to mind FDR’s attempt to expand the size of the Supreme Court after a conservative bench repeatedly overturned key legislation of the New Deal. But Burns shows that FDR was not the only president to confront a high court that seemed bent on fighting popular mandates for change, nor was he the only one to try to manipulate the bench for political ends. Many of our most effective leaders — from Jefferson to Jackson, Lincoln to FDR — have clashed with powerful justices who have refused to recognize the claims of popularly elected majorities. Burns contends that these battles have threatened the nation’s welfare in the most crucial moments of our history, form the Civil War to the Great Depression, and may do so again.
Drawing on more than two centuries of Supreme Court history, “Packing the Court” offers a timely, clear-eyed critique of judicial rule, and a forthright proposal to rein in the Surpreme Court’s power over the elected branches.
The book, published by Penguin Books, is now available in paperback.
James MacGregor Burns is the author of more than two dozen books, including “Roosevelt: Soldier of Freedom,” which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and “Leadership,” which is considered the seminal work in the field of leadership studies.
