Rethinking The New Deal Court: The Structure Of A Constitutional
Revolution By Barry Cushman (Paperback, 1998)

Product Description

Rethinking the New Deal Court challenges the prevailing account of the New Deal era Supreme Court which holds that in the spring of 1937 the Court suddenly abandoned jurisprudential positions it had staked out in such areas as substantive due process & commerce clause doctrine In this view the impetus for such a dramatic reversal was provided by external political pressures manifested in FDR's landslide victory in the 1936 election & by the subsequent Court-packing crisis Author Barry Cushman by contrast discounts the role that political pressure played in securing this constitutional revolution Instead he reorients study of the New Deal Court by focusing attention on the internal dynamics of doctrinal development & the role of New Dealers in seizing opportunities presented by doctrinal change Recasting this central story in American constitutional development as a chapter in the history of ideas rather than simply an episode in the history of politics Cushman offers a thoroughly researched & carefully argued study that recharacterizes the mechanics by which laissez-faire constitutionalism unraveled & finally collapsed during FDR's reign Identifying previously unseen connections between various lines of doctrine Cushman charts the manner in which Nebbia v New York's abandonment of the distinction between public & private enterprise hastened the demise of the doctrinal structure in which that distinction had played a central role