Holding Court: Politics and the Supreme Court

In a new book, lawyer/journalist Adam Cohen makes the case that the Supreme Court has been "a right-wing court for 50 years," siding with corporations and the wealthy — and against the poor.

President Bush's three recent Supreme Court nominations reveal the complications and motives involved when politicians choose the nation's top judges, legal observers say. Political science professor David Yalof is an expert on the history and evolution of the Supreme Court nomination process.

Author David A. Kaplan warns that the court is becoming increasingly polarized — and influential: "Why should nine unelected, unaccountable judges dictate so much policy in the country?"

Burger served as chief justice of the Supreme Court from 1969 until 1986. Linda Greenhouse, author of The Burger Court, says those years helped establish the court's conservative legal foundation.

David Savage is the Supreme Court reporter for the Los Angeles Times. He's just written a book called "Turning Right: The Making of the Rehnquist Supreme Court," (John Wiley and Sons) about how the Supreme court turned conservative in the 80s, and what future decisions the court will make.

In a profile of Ginsburg for this week's New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin describes how the incremental philosophy of litigation that helped her win many precedent-setting women's rights cases as a lawyer is reflected in her career as a Supreme Court justice.

In Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge's View, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer outlines his ideas about the Constitution and about the way the United States legal system works. Breyer explains how the justices debate each case on their docket, why he interprets the Constitution as a living document, and details what he thinks is the worst decision the high court has ever made.