Damon Root (Reason) has this new book out: Overruled: The Long War for Control of the U.S. Supreme Court (Palgrave Macmillan 2014). Here is the book description from Amazon:
Should the Supreme Court defer to the will of the majority and uphold most democratically enacted laws? Or does the Constitution empower the Supreme Court to protect a broad range of individual rights from the reach of lawmakers? In this timely and provocative book, Damon Root traces the long war over judicial activism and judicial restraint from its beginnings in the bloody age of slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction to its central role in today’s blockbuster legal battles over gay rights, gun control, and health care reform.
It's a conflict that cuts across the political spectrum in surprising ways and makes for some unusual bedfellows. Judicial deference is not only a touchstone of the Progressive left, for example, it is also a philosophy adopted by many members of the modern right. Today’s growing camp of libertarians, however, has no patience with judicial restraint and little use for majority rule. They want the courts and judges to police the other branches of government, and expect Justices to strike down any state or federal law that infringes on their bold constitutional agenda of personal and economic freedom.
Overruled is the story of two competing visions, each one with its own take on what role the government and the courts should play in our society, a fundamental debate that goes to the very heart of our constitutional system.
With this blurb from P.J. O'Rourke:
“In Overruled, Damon Root explains a divide in judicial theory about which I was not only ignorant but mistaken. ‘Judicial activism’ is wrong. Right? It gives unelected authorities minority power to impose rules and regulations that violate individual rights without a democratic process. Wrong. It’s ‘judicial deference’ that gives elected authorities majority power to impose rules and regulations that violate individual rights within a democratic process. And to further confuse the issue judicial activism and judicial deference have, by turns, been the darlings of both Liberals and Conservatives. Fortunately, Damon Root explains it all.”
Ilya Somin has a generally positive review here.
Posted at 6:42 AM