Review by Choice Review
The suggestion that the people, through their elected representatives, ought to have the final say on difficult issues of public policy--First Amendment freedoms, equal protection, abortion, personal privacy, or education--is an idea whose time has not yet come (and may or may not ever come). The "conventional wisdom" (among political conservatives today, or among political liberals in an earlier generation) is that the Supreme Court (state or federal) is to tell the people what the US Constitution commands. That such decisions by an unelected court conflict with the principle of majority rule is obvious. So too are the facts that the Constitution often provides conflicting answers, ambiguous answers, or no answer at all. The suggestion that "the Supreme Court's decisions are not to be viewed as final and binding in all circumstances, but rather as provisional in some cases" (a proposal that would require the assent of the Court) represents an approach that shifts the making of public policy decisions from the Court to the legislatures (and, arguably, from conservative to liberal). Herein lies the significance of this work, which represents an important, sophisticated, and, perhaps prophetic contribution to public debate. -F. W. Neuber, Western Kentucky University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
