The keepers of the Constitution

Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination has sparked renewed debate over the proper role of the federal judiciary.

How powerful is the U.S. Supreme Court?

Historian Samuel Eliot Morison has called the Supreme Court “the keystone in the federal arch,” because virtually all Americans are affected by the issues it tackles. “An alphabetical list,” says veteran Washington, D.C., attorney Robert Bauer, “would begin with abortion and proceed through campaign finance, church-state relations, euthanasia, pornography, presidential selection, and voting rights.” In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote of the high court, “A more imposing judicial power was never constituted by any people.” As one old quip goes, the only appeal after the Supreme Court is to God.

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