How the "fluid five "keep the tribunal unpredictable
When Richard Nixon appointed four Supreme Court Justices between 1969 and 1973Chief Justice Warren Burger and Associate Justices Harry Blackmun, William Rehnquist and Lewis Powellthe President fully expected them to halt, if not reverse, the steady expansion of individual rights that had begun under the activist Warren Court. So did many court watchers. But it has not quite turned out that way.
During its 1978-79 session, which was adjourned last week, the Supreme Court was neither liberal nor conservative. It was distinctly nonideological. Which rights were upheld, and which rights were not, depended not so...
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