Jeffrey Toobin, a legal writer for the New Yorker, has constructed an interesting biography of the Supreme Court that focuses primarily on the Rehnquist Court. Through the detailed narrative, Toobin introduces each of the justices that made up what was the longest standing 9-member team in the history of America. For those unfamiliar with that cast, they were:

*William Rehnquist
*John Paul Stephens
*Sandra Day O'Connor
*Antonin Scalia
*Anthony Kennedy
*David Souter
*Clarence Thomas
*Ruth Bader Ginsburg
*Stephen Breyer

Besides providing brief overviews of the individuals, he brings the reader through a history of the major cases that the court dealt with between the Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush II administration. Particular attention was made as to how each of the justice's influenced decisions through their own personalities and views of the Constitution. The cases they dealt with touched on abortion, gay rights, euthanasia, church and state separation, the death penatly, affirmative action, eminent domain, and the controversial decision that help settle the election of 2000 (Gore v. Bush).

It was interesting to get an insider's look at the decision making process for the court. It was also interesting to see more information about the real people who wear the robes.

Behind the scenes, Toobin weaves the theory that, starting with the Reagan administration, conservatives were actively trying to shift the court to the Right after decades of proactive courts (or as Bush II would say "activist judges") who interpreted judgments to give the government what it needed to help people. The attempts stumbled as a number of the appointed justices proved to be more moderate than expected. In fact, it was not until the appointments of John Roberts and Samuel Alito (replacing Rehnquist and O'Connor) that the conservatives seemed to be able to achieve their goal of a conservative majority.

The reader also cannot help but walk away from the book with a stronger understanding of how the Supreme Court works. This is true of both how cases are chosen and decided and how the justices themselves find themselves in America's highest court.

I ended up reading this book on the recommendation of a good friend. She knows that I am quite the political junkie. This book definitely lives up to that addiction. I found the life stories of and the interactions between the justices to be really interesting. There were more than a number of surprises about the personalities and the way they interacted.

I was also surprised by how many of the cases that were discussed were ones that I knew about. When they are clustered together like this, it is really easy to see that the Court's decisions really do affect our everyday lives.

I am really glad that I got to read this one. I wish I had had more time to get through it faster because I really didn't want to put it down.