Six to Three

Supermajority: How the Supreme Court Divided America digs into the history of the US Supreme Court before focusing its attention on the make-up of today’s court and how it came to be the way it is. It’s a critical analysis of the Court’s conservative supermajority and its impact on American democracy.

Author Michael Waldman is both a lawyer and a historian. He served under President Clinton, first as a special assistant for policy coordination, and from 1995 to 1999 as the director of speechwriting. In this position Waldman had a hand in four State of the Union and two inaugural addresses. He is the author of six previous books including The Fight to Vote and The Second Amendment: A Biography. He is also the current president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, a nonpartisan law and policy institute that works to revitalize the nation’s systems of democracy and justice.

In this latest book (released in June of 2023) Waldman delves into the history of the Supreme Court, tracing its trajectory from its very beginnings through landmark cases like Dred Scott v. Sandford and Plessy v. Ferguson and on to more progressive rulings such as Brown v. Board of Education and Obergefell v. Hodges.

He then reviews the additions to the Court under Presidents Trump and Biden before examining the court’s decisions during the tumultuous 2021–2022 term, focusing on three significant rulings. With those rulings the author notes that “Over three days in June 2022, the Supreme Court changed America”.

These decisions included the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, which put both reproductive freedom and other privacy rights at risk; Bruen, which loosened gun control regulations amidst mass shootings; and West Virginia v. EPA which placed limits on government agencies’ ability to address public health and climate change using a never before heard of “major issues doctrine”.

Waldman argues persuasively that the recent actions of the court represent a radical departure from established legal norms and threaten to undo decades of social progress. In particular he explores the notions of originalism and textualism favored by conservative judges. These judicial “philosophies” seek to interpret the Constitution based on the original intentions of the Founding Fathers and the original meanings of the words in the Constitution and the law.

“Now”, Waldman says, “originalism is having its big moment, and its flaws are on full display.”

In Waldman’s view the Founders expected the Constitution to evolve with society, a view at odds with the approaches employed by the conservative supermajority on the current Court.

Early in the book Waldman talks about what happens when the Supreme Court is extreme, ideological, partisan or otherwise departs from the public consensus. This has happened three times before he says. The first time was with the Dred Scott decision, which “propelled the rise of Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party and helped to provoke the Civil War that ended slavery.”

The second was during the first part of the twentieth century when a conservative court tried to block federal protections for workers, women and public safety during the Theodore Roosevelt administration, and continuing into the 1930s with the Court’s overturning of essential components of FDR’s New Deal. This “nearly wrecked FDR’s presidency but led to a constitutional revolution.”

The third was the actions of the Warren Court, whose collective leadership on social issues, including Brown v. Board of Education “led to its own backlash, a social counterrevolution. That long backlash is what brought us to today.”

And, he notes “…this regular cycle of overreach and backlash has shaped American history. Likely it is happening again.”

Waldman suggests remedies to counteract the court’s rightward shift, including strengthening lower courts, imposing term limits on justices, and focusing on building a progressive legislative branch. What will actually happen is up to our elected leaders - and to us. “Supermajority” is a call to action, urging readers to engage with the ongoing struggle over the Constitution’s meaning and the future of American rights and liberties.

RATING: Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

RATING COMMENTS: This book is a call to action against the overreach of our current conservative Supreme Court, which is creating its own backlash.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I listened to an audiobook copy of the book that I checked out from my local library through the Libby app.

The audiobook version is read by actor and narrator Robertson Dean, who recorded hundreds of audiobooks. He did an excellent job with this one.