Ruth Marcus: Justice Brennan Forever Changed the Court's Architecture
[Ruth Marcus is a columnist for the WaPo.]
Just in time for the opening of the Supreme Court's new term arrives a biography of one of history's most influential justices.
The subtitle chosen by Seth Stern and Stephen Wermiel for their book about William J. Brennan Jr. is telling: "Liberal Champion." There are sitting justices who are tagged with the liberal label. But this is, for now anyway, a court of conservative champions and moderate-to-liberal holdouts against their muscular push.
Writing in the Los Angeles Times, constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky described this as "the most conservative court since the mid-1930s," with an entrenched majority that "could last another decade no matter who wins the White House." True, but as Brennan was wont to say, the court is a pendulum that swings over time.
The Warren court in which Brennan was such an influential player will not rise again. Brennan's "unabashedly activist approach to judging," as Stern and Wermiel write, seems part of a "bygone era."
Yet the architecture of rights that Brennan helped erect has proved remarkably resilient. In such disparate areas as abortion, affirmative action, voting rights, due process, sex discrimination and the rights of criminal defendants, the foundation remains even if some of the walls have crumbled....
Read entire article at WaPo
Just in time for the opening of the Supreme Court's new term arrives a biography of one of history's most influential justices.
The subtitle chosen by Seth Stern and Stephen Wermiel for their book about William J. Brennan Jr. is telling: "Liberal Champion." There are sitting justices who are tagged with the liberal label. But this is, for now anyway, a court of conservative champions and moderate-to-liberal holdouts against their muscular push.
Writing in the Los Angeles Times, constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky described this as "the most conservative court since the mid-1930s," with an entrenched majority that "could last another decade no matter who wins the White House." True, but as Brennan was wont to say, the court is a pendulum that swings over time.
The Warren court in which Brennan was such an influential player will not rise again. Brennan's "unabashedly activist approach to judging," as Stern and Wermiel write, seems part of a "bygone era."
Yet the architecture of rights that Brennan helped erect has proved remarkably resilient. In such disparate areas as abortion, affirmative action, voting rights, due process, sex discrimination and the rights of criminal defendants, the foundation remains even if some of the walls have crumbled....