Overview

The supreme court under Chief Justice Earl Warren was the most revolutionary and controversial supreme court in American history. But in what sense? challenging the reigning consensus that the Warren Court, fundamentally, was protecting minorities, Lucas Powe revives the valuable tradition of looking at the supreme court in the wide political environment to find the Warren Court a functioning partner in Kennedy-Johnson liberalism. Thus the court helped to impose national liberal-elite values on groups that were outliners to that tradition - the white south, rural America, and areas of Roman Catholic dominance. In this narrative, the author discusses over 200 significant rulings: the explosive Brown decision, which fundamentally challenged the southern way of life; re-apportionment (one person, one vote), which change the political balance of American legislatures, the gradual elimination of anti-Communist domestic security programs the reform of criminal procedures (Mapp, Gideon, Miranda); the ban on school-sponsored prayer; and a new law on pornography. Most of these decisions date from 1962, when those who shaped the dominant ideology of the Warren Court of storied fame gained a fifth secure liberal vote. The justices of the majority were prominent individuals, brimming with confidence, willing to help shape a revolution and see if it would last.

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9780674000957

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Purely legal analysis emphasizes the logical links, or absence of them, between the questions raised in two or more cases and the answers given to them. Purely political analysis relies on social history as an explanation for judicial decisions. A more complete picture results, as Powe argues, from a combination of the two...Powe has done his non-psychological homework, however, and he presents new material resulting from research about Brennan, Tom Clark, and Douglas...he suggests that the Court 'was not worrying about Constitutional theory but rather reaching results that conformed to the values that enjoyed significant national support in the mid-1960s.' His well-researched and lively volume presents strong evidence that he is correct. -- Philippa Strum The Journal of American History

The Warren Court and American Politics is a spectacularly good book. Written for an audience of educated non-lawyers, it provides the best available account of the relationship between the Warren Court's liberalism and American politics during the entire period of Earl Warren's tenure...It retrieves the nearly forgotten period of stalemate. Its argument that the South must be seen at the center of the Warren Court's work in free speech, religion, and criminal procedure illuminates the Court's enterprise better than any other account of which I am aware.--Mark V. Tushnet Texas Law Review

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