As frequent swing vote and centrist voice, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor helped shape many of the Supreme Court's landmark decisions and opinions under the leadership of William Rehnquist. Indeed, many argue that her overall impact and influence was greater than that of the Chief Justice himself. Nancy Maveety now takes a closer look at what might justifiably be known as the O'Connor Court, in which the voices of individual justices came to the fore. She describes how policy leadership was subdivided among these eminent jurists in a way that fostered an individualist conception of judicial power. And she explains how this distribution of power contributed to a proliferation of concurring opinions—and, in polarizing issues like Planned Parenthood v. Casey or the Michigan affirmative action cases, decisions that sidestepped precedent-setting principles. Maveety's book is the first to look beyond the conventional wisdom that O'Connor's centrism gave her de facto control over a court notorious for its disunity, providing instead a more precise and systematic analysis of her influence. Maveety seeks not only to assign a definitive meaning to "the Rehnquist Court" but also to identify its historical importance for the constitutional order and the conception of judicial power within it—situating O'Connor squarely at its center. Maveety describes the attributes that distinguish this Court from its predecessors and suggests how O'Connor's five years on the Burger Court foreshadowed her emergence as an accommodationist. Then, as the Court became more polarized under Rehnquist, there evolved the individualized behavior and rule-of-thumb jurisprudence that came to characterize O'Connor's decision making. What resulted were carefully circumscribed decisions like Bush v. Gore or Hamdi v. Rumsfeld that provide fewer precedents for lower courts. Queen's Court ultimately reveals that the importance of the Rehnquist years extends from the substance of constitutional law to the institutional operation of Court decision-making—and that O'Connor was vital to those changes.

Queen's Court: Judicial Power in the Rehnquist Era

Biographies & Memoirs

Maveety, Nancy

Professionals & Academics

University Press of Kansas

What defines a president? Is it policymaking? A good relationship with the American people? Or is it legacy? Most would argue that legacy imprints a president in the American consciousness. A president’s federal judicial appointees may be his or her most lasting political legacy. Because federal judges serve for life, their legal policymaking endures long after a president’s term in office is over. Presidents who care about serving their mandate, who desire to maximize their policy agenda, and who wish to influence the nation’s constitutional fabric appoint as many federal judges as possible. This new volume in the Presidential Briefings series shows how the president’s appointment power has expanded beyond its bare constitutional outlines. In exercising their constitutional powers while paying heed to political opportunities, presidents and the Senate have together created our modern judicial appointment politics. Presidents consider a host of demographic and ideological factors, candidate qualities, and electoral politics. Nancy Maveety examines the dynamics of screening and choosing judicial nominees and analyzes the institutional calculus in securing their confirmation in the face of senatorial obstruction. Maveety shows how a president can adapt to particular circumstances and provides an outline for synergistically staffing the federal judiciary, thus securing a legacy for all time.

Picking Judges: Presidential Briefings (Presidential Briefings Series)

Administrative Law

Routledge

What defines a president? Is it policymaking? A good relationship with the American people? Or is it legacy? Most would argue that legacy imprints a president in the American consciousness. A president's federal judicial appointees may be his or her most lasting political legacy. Because federal judges serve for life, their legal policymaking endures long after a president's term in office is over. Presidents who care about serving their mandate, who desire to maximize their policy agenda, and who wish to influence the nation's constitutional fabric appoint as many federal judges as possible.
This new volume in the Presidential Briefings series shows how the president's appointment power has expanded beyond its bare constitutional outlines. In exercising their constitutional powers while paying heed to political opportunities, presidents and the Senate have together created our modern judicial appointment politics. Presidents consider a host of demographic and ideological factors, candidate qualities, and electoral politics.
Nancy Maveety examines the dynamics of screening and choosing judicial nominees and analyses the institutional calculus in securing their confirmation in the face of senatorial obstruction. Maveety shows how a president can adapt to particular circumstances and provides an outline for synergistically staffing the federal judiciary, thus securing a legacy for all time.

Set against the backdrop of historic New Orleans, Tulane political science professor, Dr. Nancy Maveety explores the trials and tribulations of the academic world at a fictional private university. From the anxieties of doctoral candidates frantically trying to balance finishing their dissertations with finding THE job that will end the fear that all of this time has been a waste, to the frustrations of young assistant professors in their quest for the elusive tenured position, Maveety describes all with remarkable detail and striking humor. In The Stagnant Pool, the reader sees that academia is not immune to the power struggles and petty office politics that abound whenever you have more than two people together. Academics will enjoy identifying themselves with some of the actors in this funny psychodrama.

The Stagnant Pool: Scholars Below Sea Level (Fiction)

University Press of the South

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Maveety, Nancy. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Maveety, Nancy

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Maveety, Nancy. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Queen's Court: Judicial Power in the Rehnquist Era

Picking Judges: Presidential Briefings (Presidential Briefings Series)

Picking Judges: Presidential Briefings (Presidential Briefings Series)

The Stagnant Pool: Scholars Below Sea Level (Fiction)