YEAH, BUT THEY DIDN'T LOSE THEIR WAY UNTIL MARBURY...:

The biggest problem Kaplan has with the judiciary branch is its propensity to insert itself into policy debates that would be better served through the back and forth of legislative adjustments and voter sentiment (not only looking to Congress, but also state and local laws and ordinances). In doing so, the court demoralizes Congress in particular from deciding, or attempting to re-shape, issues and laws. How does that happen? Conventional wisdom holds that the court will decide the hottest-button issues, as it has ever since Roe v. Wade in 1973.

Even before the opening page, Kaplan's message is clear from the title. "The Most Dangerous Branch" resonates even more with Court and legal aficionados. Alexander Bickel, the late Yale Law professor and renowned Supreme Court follower and commentator, wrote a seminal history called "The Least Dangerous Branch," published in 1962. Bickel, who died in 1974, was known for his belief in judicial restraint, a philosophy based on hewing as closely to possible to the specific determination of a case without broadening a ruling or judgment beyond that narrow scope. Following that formula, the courts leave it to the legislative and executives branches - and, in doing so, the broader populace who vote for and against lawmakers - to establish policy.

During the 2016 presidential election, 70% of voters in exit polls said appointments to the Supreme Court were the most important factor, or one of the most important, when deciding whether to support a candidate. Such figures demonstrate the court-as-policy-setter motif has not just infected governing bodies, but the populace as a whole.

Or, as Kaplan writes, "'Judicial activism' is what the other guy does. But in truth, everybody's an activist now." The point hammered home by the author is that democracy ceases to exist in a society governed by the judiciary.

He finds ample hypocrisy on the left and right alike, ripping what he describes as the squishy arguments of Harry Blackmun, who wrote the majority opinion in Roe determining access to abortion as a right, and Antonin Scalia, a frequent dissenter on gay rights and author of the 2008 Heller decision determining an individual right to own guns is part of the Second Amendment.

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