Nixon's Court : his challenge to judicial liberalism and its political consequences / Kevin J. McMahon.

9780226561196 alk. paper
0226561194 alk. paper

Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2011.

English

xiii, 343 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.

KF8742 .M36 2011

347.73/26

In seeking to appeal to voters he would later call the "great silent majority," presidential candidate Richard Nixon laid down a challenge to the Warren Supreme Court in 1968, blaming it for the nation's recent crime wave and the unrest plaguing America's urban core. Inspired by his success in the election, Nixon maneuvered during the course of his presidency to alter the Court in hopes of making it work for him. Most analysts, however, have deemed Nixon's challenge to the judicial liberalism of the Warren Supreme Court a failure--"a counterrevolution that wasn't." Nixon's Court offers an alternative assessment. Kevin J. McMahon reveals a Nixon whose public rhetoric was more conservative than his administration's actions and whose policy toward the Court was more subtle than previously recognized. Viewing Nixon's judicial strategy as part political and part legal, McMahon argues that Nixon succeeded substantially on both counts. Many of the issues dear to social conservatives, such as abortion and school prayer, were not nearly as important to Nixon. Consequently, his nominations for the Supreme Court were chosen primarily to advance his "law and order: and school desegregation agendas--agendas the Court eventually endorse. But there were also political motivations to Nixon's approach: he wanted his judicial policy to be conservative enough to attract white southerners and northern white ethnics disgruntled with the Democratic Party but not so conservative as to drive away independents and moderates in his own party. In essence, then, he used his criticisms of the Court to speak to members of his "silent majority" in hopes of disrupting the long-dominant New Deal Democratic coalition. For McMahon, Nixon's judicial strategy succeeded not only in shaping the course of constitutional law in the areas he most desired but also in laying the foundation of an electoral alliance that would dominate presidential politics for a generation.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [317]-330) and index.

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