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Political Battles For Judicial Independence, William H. Rehnquist

Washington Law Review

There is a tendency among present and former law students to think that the development of the nature and extent of the authority of the federal judiciary, and of the Supreme Court of the United States in particular, may be found in the celebrated cases decided by that Court. To an extent this is undoubtedly true. However, at least two major political struggles in this nation have had as much to do with defining the nature of the judicial power in the federal system as anybut a handful of the major decisions of the Supreme Court. No reported judicial decision …