Radicals in Robes
Why Extreme Right-Wing Court
Are Wrong for America
This work offers a shocking expose of what's really at stake in the hard right turn taken by the Federal Courts, and what we all stand to lose if balance isn't restored to the judiciary branch of government. Even with the recent changes in its make-up, the US Supreme Court is usually assumed to be roughly balanced between left and right. This is a myth. In fact the justices once considered right-wing are now the Court's moderates; those who were once centrists are now the Court's "liberals", and the liberal element has all but disappeared. Since William Rehnquist was confirmed as Chief Justice in 1986, the Supreme Court has engaged in an unprecedented record of judicial activism. These factors are feeding a movement to restore what many conservatives call "The Constitution in Exile," by which they mean the Constitution as it existed before the Roosevelt administration. "Radicals in Robes" explains what the restoration of this constitutional vision would mean. It would mean the end of every federal agency that enacts regulations that have the force of law. It would mean that the clause of the First Amendment that says that Congress may make no law "respecting an establishment of religion" would be turned on its head. Marriage laws and many other familiar areas of modern American life are all in the sights of this conservative movement. "Radicals in Robes" takes judicial philosophy out of the law schools and shows what it means when it intersects partisan politics. It pulls away the veil of rhetoric from a dangerous and radical rightwing movement and issues a strong and passionate warning about what conservatives really intend. One of the most respected legal theorists in the USA, Cass R. Sunstein here issues a warning of compelling concern to us all.
