An essential history of how both parties fought for control of the Supreme Court-and how Republicans have seized the advantage.
In Supreme Control, leading Supreme Court scholar Lucas A. Powe, Jr. explains how the United States arrived at the Republican-dominated Roberts Court that is transforming constitutional law and reshaping everyday American life. What once seemed unthinkable, a Court willing to overturn long-settled precedent to advance a single political vision, has become reality.
Powe argues that today's Court fulfills a decades-long Republican project: the creation of a reliably conservative Supreme Court. Built through a carefully orchestrated strategy culminating in the judicial appointments made during Donald Trump's presidency, the Roberts Court represents an unprecedented concentration of power within one political coalition. Placing these developments in historical context, Powe shows how the current Court is only the latest in a long battle for partisan dominance of American law.
The struggle to control the Supreme Court, Powe demonstrates, is as old as the republic itself. From Washington, Adams, and Jefferson to Lincoln, Grant, and FDR, presidents have sought a Court that would secure their constitutional priorities. After a string of controversial liberal rulings in the 1960s and 1970s by the Warren Court, conservatives launched a sustained, long-term effort to reverse that legacy. That campaign advanced unevenly for decades until it finally succeeded in the twenty-first century with Donald Trump's first term.
Today, the consequences are unmistakable. The Court's recent decisions on abortion, gun rights, religion, affirmative action, and executive power have thrust it into the center of American political life, with sweeping implications for democracy, governance, and individual rights.
As Americans continue to grapple with the Court's immense authority, Supreme Control provides the clearest explanation yet of how we reached this critical moment in history and what it means for the nation's future.
