Rachel A. Shelden — The Political Supreme Court: A Forgotten History - with Steve Vladeck — at Conn Ave

Today's Supreme Court justices bristle at the label "politicians in robes," insisting that they operate above the fray of partisan politics. But for the first century of the nation's history, the Court was unmistakably a political institution, both by design and in practice. Justices were fully expected to engage in partisan politics--there was no concern that such engagement would lead to corruption or undue bias--and they remained deeply involved in civic debate and the electoral process while on the bench. In addition to hearing cases in the capital, each justice spent much of his time "riding circuit" and presiding over federal trial courts. On circuit and in Washington, nineteenth-century justices wrote for partisan newspapers, drafted legislation, advised partisan allies, campaigned for colleagues, and even ran for political offices from the bench. Through these political interactions, members of the Court helped shape debates about the Constitution's meaning at a time when most Americans did not believe in judicial supremacy.In this sweeping history, Rachel A. Shelden, one of America's leading voices on the history of the Court, brings readers inside the social and political world of its justices, recovering their essential role in the era's turbulent politics. She also charts shifts at the turn of the twentieth century, when members of the Court and the legal community refashioned the judiciary as an apolitical institution, setting the stage for an increasingly more powerful--and more isolated--modern Court. The Political Supreme Court is required reading for anyone interested in the legal and political underpinnings of today's judicial power.Rachel A. Shelden is associate professor of history and director of the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center at Penn State University. A leading scholar of nineteenth-century America, Shelden is a member of the Historians Council on the Constitution at the Brennan Center for Justice.Shelden will be in conversation with Stephen I. Vladeck, the Agnes Williams Sesquicentennial Professor of Federal Courts at the Georgetown University Law Center, is a nationally recognized expert on the Supreme Court, the federal courts, national security law, and military justice. He is the author of The Court We Need: What's Really Wrong With the Supreme Court—and How to Fix It, forthcoming from Viking Books on May 4, 2027, and of the New York Times-bestselling The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic. He serves as CNN’s Supreme Court analyst and writes One First, a popular weekly newsletter about the Court. And he is the inaugural holder of the National Institute of Military Justice’s Professor Edmund Morgan Chair in Military Justice.This event is free with first come, first serve seating.To request accommodations for this event or to inquire about accessibility please email events@politics-prose.com ideally one week in advance of the event date. We will make an effort to accommodate all requests up until the time of the event.