Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
Over two centuries of American history the Supreme Court has often become a significant issue in presidential elections, with voters acutely aware that the dominance of one party at the polls may translate into that party's dominance on the nation's highest court. Should Americans presume that votes at the ballot box will have an effect on votes at the Supreme Court on what our Constitution means?
Donald Grier Stephenson Jr. explores the periods when the Court has been an issue in elections—and when it has not––investigating ten elections in which the Court was clearly an issue and looking also at the election of 1992, in which it could have become a major issue but did not. Drawing from four areas of political history—party evolution, presidential campaigns, as well as judicial and constitutional development—Stephenson presents a sophisticated inquiry into the relationship of the Supreme Court to the electoral process and considers whether this recurring electoral phenomenon is a beneficial feature of democratic politics—or one that ought to be met with concern.
1. The Constitution, Politics, and the Supreme Court
2. The Election of 1800: Partisan Beginnings
3. The Election of 1832: Partisanship Revived
4. The Election of 1860: Limits of Partisanship
5. The Elections of 1896, 1912, and 1924: Partisanship Redirected
6. The Election of 1936: A Constitutional Divide
7. The Election of 1968: Partisanship Destabilized
8. The Elections of 1980 and 1984: Whose Constitution?
9. Presidential Campaigns and the Supreme Court
Appendix 1. The Presidency and Congress, by 1789–1998
Appendix 2. Presidents and Justices