United States. Supreme Court. Judicial review --United States -- Political questions and judicial power --United States.

This is a book about the authority of the juciciary, and particularly the Supreme Court, to determine the meaning of the constitution. It seeks to understand why the judiciary has that authority and looks for the answer in the incentives facing the individuals occupying the various institutions of government. Judicial supremacy largely consists of the ability of the Supreme Court to erase the distinction between its own opinions interpreting the Constitution and the actual Constitution itself. The Court claims the authority not only to look into the meaning of the Constitution as a guide to the justices’ own actions, but also and more impotantly to say what the Constitution means, for themselves and for everyone else. Political leaders, and most importantly presidents, have generally been willing to lend their support to those sorts of claims by the Court.