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Cass Sunstein

Cass R. Sunstein is the Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Chicago Law School and the author of more than a dozen books, including After the Rights Revolution, Designing Democracy and most recently, The Cost-Benefit State.

Recent Articles

The Myth of the Balanced Court

In 1980, John Paul Stevens stood at the center of the Supreme Court. Today, he is its most left-wing member -- and he hasn't changed.

Cass SunsteinAug 12, 2007

It is how the mainstream media have taught the public to think about decisions by the current Supreme Court. And it is a conceptual scheme that makes it utterly impossible to understand either the Court's current makeup or its recent history.

The Myth of Balance Between Left and Right holds that the Court has a "liberal wing," consisting of Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer, and a "conservative wing," consisting of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas. Justice Anthony Kennedy is the swing vote, the "moderate."

The Problem with Predictability

Cass SunsteinJul 07, 2005

Right-wing activists have made it all too clear that they want President George W. Bush to appoint Supreme Court justices who are "predictable." The longtime refrain of "No more David Souters" has been joined by "No more Anthony Kennedys." Some groups demand a nominee who does not believe that the Constitution protects abortion or gay rights or even privacy; others insist that the next justice should reliably protect economic interests of which they approve. The activists, and according to some reports the White House itself, do not want surprises.

Economic Security: A Human Right

Cass SunsteinSep 20, 2004

Are social and economic rights foreign to American traditions? Are they inconsistent with our laissez-faire freedom-loving culture? Consider a defining moment in our nation's history, when national security was also threatened and when an American president argued that freedom itself required social and economic rights. In our own day, we should be paying close attention to his arguments.

The Warrior's Tale

Cass SunsteinJun 13, 2003

The Clinton Wars By Sidney Blumenthal, Farrar Straus & Giroux, 822 pages, $30.00

The Right-Wing Assault

Cass SunsteinFeb 19, 2003

Since the election of President Reagan, a disciplined, carefully orchestrated and quite self-conscious effort by high-level Republican officials in the White House and the Senate has radically transformed the federal judiciary. For more than two decades, Republican leaders have had a clear agenda for the nation's courts: to reduce the powers of the federal government; to scale back the rights of those accused of crime; to strike down affirmative-action programs and campaign-finance laws; to diminish privacy rights, including the right to abortion; and to protect commercial interests, including commercial advertisers, from government regulation. They have sought judicial candidates who would interpret the Constitution and other federal statutes in a way that would promote this agenda.

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