Inside the Supreme Court

One Vote Away: How a Single Supreme Court Seat Can Change History – Ted Cruz – (Regnery Publishing)

Sitting through some of the recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearings regarding the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court of the United States, it can become pretty convincing, pretty quickly, that attorneys have created their own language, rules and standards, in some sort of an effort to exclude ordinary working folks as to how the court works.

Over the course of the hearing for the last three nominees the potential justices seem to hold fast to a code of judicial conduct, about tipping their hand on where they might stand and how they might rule on any given issue that may or may not come before them. Try as they might, often asking the same question about 30 or 40 different ways, the mostly lawyers who make up the Senate panel, notably the Democrat members, don’t seem to be bothered by trying to coax the nominees to speak out of turn.

In his new book, One Vote Away: How a Single Supreme Court Seat Can Change History, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a former Supreme Court clerk of Justice Antonin Scalia delves into the inner workings of the court and uses a handful often ground breaking cases, that were decided by the push, a single vote to secure a 5-4 decision, to illustrate how those cases have impacted our daily lives. He makes the case that these types of push decisions can be greatly impacted by the courts ever evolving makeup.

He uses his insiders knowledge to make the case that originalists, those justices who utilize the intent of the founding fathers in their decision making process are often what separates us from tyranny. In a crazy year where the word essential has been so over-used, it is the perfect word to describe the book which cuts through all of the legal-eze and hyperbole of the politicization of the Court to explain exactly how the Court was intended to work. It should be required reading for every high school student.