Constitutional Interpretation and Political Choice A Changing Judiciary Beginnings The Court Comes of Age Judicial Business in the Nineteenth Century The Modern Court Appointment Politics, 1968–1984 From Warren to Burger Fortas Resigns Powell, Rehnquist, and Stevens The First Woman Justice Appointment Politics, 1984–1992 Whose Supreme Court Is It? The Bork Debacle End of the Brennan Era The Thomas Maelstrom Appointment Politics, 1992–2010 Ginsburg and Breyer A New Chief Justice The Obama Appointments II. CHAPTER OVERVIEW AND OBJECTIVES Understanding constitutional law today is helped by an awareness of the Court’s institutional development. A summary of this development is presented early in the Introduction, where it is seen that the Court’s first decade was characterized by obscurity, weakness, and uncertainty as to what the institution would become. Detracting from the attractiveness of the high bench in the early years was the circuit riding Congress imposed on the justices, a duty not finally eliminated until 1891. In addition to sitting collectively as the Supreme Court, justices sat as judges of the circuit courts, one of the two types of lower federal courts established by the Judiciary Act of 1789. Although the act provided for three types of courts (district courts, circuit courts, and the Supreme Court), it authorized the appointment of judges only for the district courts and the Supreme Court. Except