“The heart of The Next Justice is its effort to clarify the idea of a judicial philosophy. It does that by describing what the Supreme Court actually does when it confronts hard cases. Drawing on both historical research and personal observation, the book takes readers behind the scenes at the Supreme Court to show how the justices reach conclusions and assemble majorities.

“What happens at the Court is both genuinely political and genuinely principled. Values matter, as they do in the legislature, but the justices honor procedural constraints very different from those that apply in Congress. They do not trade votes across cases, for example. They also recognize that their role sometimes requires them to defer to other branches even when they disagree with what those branches have done. At the end of the day, though, they often end up disagreeing along recognizably political lines. For that reason, the appointments process—in the White House and in the Senate—needs to focus on nominees’ values, not just their professional credentials.”

Read the rest at Rorotoko.