As frequent swing vote and centrist voice, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor helped shape many of the Supreme Court's landmark decisions and opinions under the leadership of William Rehnquist. Indeed, many argue that her overall impact and influence was greater than that of the Chief Justice himself.

Nancy Maveety now takes a closer look at what might justifiably be known as the O'Connor Court, in which the voices of individual justices came to the fore. She describes how policy leadership was subdivided among these eminent jurists in a way that fostered an individualist conception of judicial power. And she explains how this distribution of power contributed to a proliferation of concurring opinions--and, in polarizing issues like "Planned Parenthood v. Casey" or the Michigan affirmative action cases, decisions that sidestepped precedent-setting principles.

Maveety's book is the first to look beyond the conventional wisdom that O'Connor's centrism gave her de facto control over a court notorious for its disunity, providing instead a more precise and systematic analysis of her influence. Maveety seeks not only to assign a definitive meaning to "the Rehnquist Court" but also to identify its historical importance for the constitutional order and the conception of judicial power within it--situating O'Connor squarely at its center.

Maveety describes the attributes that distinguish this Court from its predecessors and suggests how O'Connor's five years on the Burger Court foreshadowed her emergence as an accommodationist. Then, as the Court became more polarized under Rehnquist, there evolved the individualized behavior and rule-of-thumb jurisprudence that came to characterize O'Connor's decision making. What resulted were carefully circumscribed decisions like "Bush v. Gore" or "Hamdi v. Rumsfeld" that provide fewer precedents for lower courts.

Queen's Court ultimately reveals that the importance of the Rehnquist years extends from the substance of constitutional law to the institutional operation of Court decision-making--and that O'Connor was vital to those changes.

The presidency of Barack Obama seeks a major transformation of American politics and policy. This new collection, edited by Steven E. Schier, examines the unusual combination of risk and ambition in Obama's presidency concerning popular politics, Washington politics, and economic and foreign policy. It also places the Obama presidency in historical perspective, noting the unusual circumstances of his election and the similarities and differences between presidential politics today and those of previous eras. Transforming America: Barack Obama in the White House provides a guiding focus involving the successes and failures of the administration's transformative aspirations during Obama's initial years in the White House. Contributions by John J. Coleman, James L. Guth, John F. Harris, James Hohmann, Bertram Johnson, Richard E. Matland, Nancy Maveety, James M. McCormick, John J. Pitney Jr, Nicol C. Rae, Steven E. Schier, Raymond Tatalovich, Andrea L. Walker, and John K. White.

Since her appointment as the first woman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has had a major, but largely unrecognized, influence on the collective jurisprudence of the Burger and Rehnquist Courts. In this comprehensive and systematic analysis of O'Connor's judicial contributions, Nancy Maveety describes how O'Connor has used accommodationist decision-making strategies to make substantive contributions to the development of both constitutional law and the Court's norms of collegiality. Skeptical of interpretations that seek to impose feminist conventions on O'Connor's judicial behavior, this account combines biographical data with an analytical discussion of O'Connor's crucial decisions. This is important reading for anyone interested in the Supreme Court and contemporary jurisprudence.

Since her appointment as the first woman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has had a major, but largely unrecognized, influence on the collective jurisprudence of the Burger and Rehnquist Courts. In this comprehensive and systematic analysis of O'Connor's judicial contributions, Nancy Maveety describes how O'Connor has used accommodationist decision-making strategies to make substantive contributions to the development of both constitutional law and the Court's norms of collegiality. Skeptical of interpretations that seek to impose feminist conventions on O'Connor's judicial behavior, this account combines biographical data with an analytical discussion of O'Connor's crucial decisions. This is important reading for anyone interested in the Supreme Court and contemporary jurisprudence.

What defines a president? Is it policymaking? A good relationship with the American people? Or is it legacy? Most would argue that legacy imprints a president in the American consciousness. A president's federal judicial appointees may be his or her most lasting political legacy. Because federal judges serve for life, their legal policymaking endures long after a president's term in office is over. Presidents who care about serving their mandate, who desire to maximize their policy agenda, and who wish to influence the nation's constitutional fabric appoint as many federal judges as possible. This new volume in the Presidential Briefings series shows how the president's appointment power has expanded beyond its bare constitutional outlines. In exercising their constitutional powers while paying heed to political opportunities, presidents and the Senate have together created our modern judicial appointment politics. Presidents consider a host of demographic and ideological factors, candidate qualities, and electoral politics. Nancy Maveety examines the dynamics of screening and choosing judicial nominees and analyses the institutional calculus in securing their confirmation in the face of senatorial obstruction. Maveety shows how a president can adapt to particular circumstances and provides an outline for synergistically staffing the federal judiciary, thus securing a legacy for all time.

What defines a president? Is it policymaking? A good relationship with the American people? Or is it legacy? Most would argue that legacy imprints a president in the American consciousness. A president's federal judicial appointees may be his or her most lasting political legacy. Because federal judges serve for life, their legal policymaking endures long after a president's term in office is over. Presidents who care about serving their mandate, who desire to maximize their policy agenda, and who wish to influence the nation's constitutional fabric appoint as many federal judges as possible. This new volume in the Presidential Briefings series shows how the president's appointment power has expanded beyond its bare constitutional outlines. In exercising their constitutional powers while paying heed to political opportunities, presidents and the Senate have together created our modern judicial appointment politics. Presidents consider a host of demographic and ideological factors, candidate qualities, and electoral politics. Nancy Maveety examines the dynamics of screening and choosing judicial nominees and analyses the institutional calculus in securing their confirmation in the face of senatorial obstruction. Maveety shows how a president can adapt to particular circumstances and provides an outline for synergistically staffing the federal judiciary, thus securing a legacy for all time.

In Glass and Gavel, noted legal expert Nancy Maveety has written the first book devoted to alcohol in the nation's highest court of law, the United States Supreme Court. Combining an examination of the justices' participation in the social use of alcohol across the Court's history with a survey of the Court's decisions on alcohol regulation, Maveety illustrates the ways in which the Court has helped to construct the changing culture of alcohol. "Intoxicating liquor" is one of the few things so plainly material to explicitly merit mention, not once, but twice, in the amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Maveety shows how much of our constitutional law-Supreme Court rulings on the powers of government and the rights of individuals-has been shaped by our American love/hate relationship with the bottle and the barroom. From the tavern as a judicial meeting space, to the bootlegger as both pariah and patriot, to the individual freedom issue of the sobriety checkpoint-there is the Supreme Court, adjudicating but also partaking in the temper(ance) of the times. In an entertaining and accessible style, Maveety shows that what the justices say and do with respect to alcohol provides important lessons about their times, our times, and our "constitutional cocktail" of limited governmental power and individual rights.