The Will of the People: How Public Opinion Has Influenced the Supreme Court and Shaped the Meaning of the Constitution (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780374532376)

In recent years, the justices of the Supreme Court have ruled definitively on such issues as abortion, school prayer, and military tribunals in the war on terror. They decided one of American history's most contested presidential elections. Yet for all their power, the justices never face election, and hold their offices for life. This combination of influence and apparent unaccountability has led many to complain that there is something illegitimate--even undemocratic--about judicial authority.

In The Will of the People, Barry Friedman challenges that claim by showing that the Court has always been subject to a higher power: the American public. Judicial positions have been abolished, the justices' jurisdiction has been stripped, the Court has been packed, and unpopular decisions have been defied. For at least the past sixty years, the justices have made sure that their decisions do not stray too far from public opinion.

Friedman's pathbreaking account of the relationship between popular opinion and the Supreme Court--from the Declaration of Independence to the end of the Rehnquist Court in 2005--details how the American people came to accept their most controversial institution and, in so doing, shaped the meaning of the Constitution.

Author: Barry Friedman
ISBN-10: 0374532370
ISBN-13: 9780374532376
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Language: English
Published: 08/17/2010
Pages: 624
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.70lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.50w x 1.70d

Review Citation(s):
New York Times Book Review 10/03/2010 pg. 32