Joan Biskupic, journalist and longtime chronicler of the Supreme Court, provides an inside look at the Court and its sharp lurch to the right. This conservative transformation has been underway for a while, but as Biskupic documents in extensive detail, it has gone into overdrive with the justices nominated and confirmed under Donald Trump. And the shift is having profound consequences for the country on a range of issues, from abortion and voting rights to government regulatory power and the separation of church and state. Nine Black Robes is fascinating and illuminating, comprehensive and even-handed. And no doubt many readers will find what it says about the Court’s current course very disturbing. Biskupic herself uses terms like “off the rails,” “going backward,” and “laying waste to precedents” in her blunt description of what’s happening.
