In the Balance: Law and Politics on the Roberts Court

An examination of the initial years of the Roberts Court and the intellectual battle between Roberts and Kagan for leadership.

When John Roberts was appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court, he said he would act as an umpire. Instead, his Court is reshaping legal precedent through decisions unmistakably—though not always predictably—determined by politics as much as by law, on a Court almost perfectly politically divided.

Harvard Law School professor and constitutional law expert Mark T...