In the mail: The Partisan: The Life of William Rehnquist by John A. Jenkins.

“The Rehnquist Court, which lasted almost twenty years, was molded in his image. In thirty-three years on the Supreme Court, from 1972 until his death in 2005 at age 80, Rehnquist was at the center of the Court’s dramatic political transformation. He was a partisan, waging a quiet, constant battle to imbue the Court with a deep conservatism favoring government power over individual rights.”

Out this week: The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin.

“This book is based principally on my interviews with the justices and
more than forty of their law clerks. The interviews were on a
not-for-attribution basis – that is, I could use the information
provided but without quoting directly or identifying the source.”

A new 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll finds just 40% of Americans know that there are nine justices on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Among college graduates, 52% answered correctly while 40% got it wrong and 8% say they don’t know. Of those without a college degree, 35% got it right, while 52% answered incorrectly and 13% said they don’t know.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia “downplayed reports of personal and ideological rifts stemming from the recent landmark health care reform ruling,” telling CNN that “it offends me” to hear such criticism.

“Some media and blog
reports — citing sources with specific knowledge of the deliberation
process — suggested strong tensions among the court’s conservatives
over Roberts’ vote, which some commentators perceived as political
expediency.”

A new Gallup survey finds Americans’ opinions of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts are now much more negative than they were seven years ago, coming after his vote to uphold President Obama’s healthcare law.

Overall, just 39% have a favorable view as compared to 50% just after his confirmation hearings. Republicans’ favorable rating of Roberts is down 40 percentage points from 2005, while Democrats’ is up 19.

Domenico Montanaro has a must-read piece on how Solicitor General Donald Verrilli won over Chief Justice John Roberts with his arguments over the constitutionality of President Obama’s health care law.

Chief Justice John Roberts joked that he’ll be spending some time in “an impregnable fortress” now that the Supreme Court has ended a session in which he cast the the decisive vote upholding President Obama’s health care law, the AP reports.

Responding to a question about his summer plans, Roberts quipped that he thought his planned trip to Malta to teach a class was a “good idea.”

Radio talk show host Michael Savage offered one explanation for Chief Justice John Roberts upholding the health care law:

“Let’s talk about Roberts. I’m going to tell you something that you’re not going to hear anywhere else, that you must pay attention to. It’s well known that Roberts, unfortunately for him, has suffered from epileptic seizures. Therefore he has been on medication. Therefore neurologists will tell you that medication used for seizure disorders, such as epilepsy, can introduce mental slowing, forgetfulness and other cognitive problems. And if you look at Roberts’ writings you can see the cognitive dissociation in what he is saying.”

David Bernstein: “I should note that I think the Supreme Court is a political body (which is not to say that its decisions are primarily motivated by partisanship or political ideology) and that one can expect that the Court’s rulings are affected by outside events. As I noted long ago, the challenge to the individual mandate would have stood no chance if the president and the ACA were riding very high in the polls, as the Court would not have had the political wherewithal to write what would be seen as a radical opinion invalidating a popular law from a popular president. Similarly, the level of heat defenders of the ACA were giving the Court could have persuaded Roberts that discretion was the better part of valor…”

“I don’t find it at all illegitimate for political actors to put pressure on the Court, so long as they stay within proper legal bounds, and keep their rhetoric within the broad boundaries of decency. But it is ironic that while liberal critics were quick to accuse the Court of playing politics by taking seriously the Obamacare challenges, it may turn out that it was only politics that saved the ACA.”

David Bernstein: “Back in May, there were rumors floating around relevant legal circles that a key vote was taking place, and that Roberts was feeling tremendous pressure from unidentified circles to vote to uphold the mandate. Did Roberts originally vote to invalidate the mandate on commerce clause grounds, and to invalidate the Medicaid expansion, and then decide later to accept the tax argument and essentially rewrite the Medicaid expansion (which, as I noted, citing Jonathan Cohn, was the sleeper issue in this case) to preserve it? If so, was he responding to the heat from President Obama and others, preemptively threatening to delegitimize the Court if it invalidated the ACA? The dissent, along with the surprising way that Roberts chose to uphold both the mandate and the Medicaid expansion, will inevitably feed the rumor mill.”

Rick Hasen: “In this Politico op-ed, I noted how ludicrous it was to talk about the Chief facing threats, pressure, and bullying. But if the Chief is sensitive to the institutional legitimacy of the Court and a desire to preserve his political capital for other reasons, then it is possible he was waffling in the face of the torrent of commentary. But how did the waffling leak out? An interesting question to say the least.”

Noah Feldman says the Supreme Court could have made history striking down President Obama’s health care law but instead chose the more cautious path.

“In the spirit of Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Felix Frankfurter, the court adopted the strategy of judicial restraint. The man most responsible for this comes as a surprise: Chief Justice John Roberts, a tried and tested conservative appointed by George W. Bush to the near-universal plaudits of the right. Roberts said in his confirmation hearings that he believed in judicial restraint. That has become a cliche, repeated by every would-be judge raising a right hand before a Senate committee. When the chips were down, Roberts did exactly what he had sworn to do under oath. He stayed the court’s hand and rejected activism.”

Jonathan Chait argues that Roberts “is not willing to do is to impose his vision in one sudden and transparently partisan attack. Roberts is playing the long game.”

The Daily Beast uncovers some hard-to-believe facts about the nation’s highest court.

Nate Silver notes that according to one measure, the current Supreme Court may be the most conservative in the modern era.

“Mr.
Martin and Mr. Quinn rate the current court (based on data up through
late 2010) as the most conservative in their database based on the
positioning of the median justice, the previous high having come in the
early 1950s. Although Justice Kennedy is not extraordinarily
conservative relative to all other justices who have served on the
court, he is very conservative by the standards of the median justice,
who has typically been more of a true moderate.”

“The Martin-Quinn
method suggests that there has been some overall rightward drift among
almost all members of the court, including the more liberal justices,
since Chief Justice Roberts took over for Chief Justice William H.
Rehnquist. Although Chief Justice Roberts is not especially more
conservative than Chief Justice Rehnquist under their system, chief
justices can sometimes exert an overall pull on the court based on the
way they manage it, and this may be one of those cases.”

Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull “admitted to sending a racially charged email about President Barack Obama from his courthouse chambers,” the Great Falls Tribune reports.

Cebull “was nominated by former President George W. Bush and received his commission in 2001 and has served as chief judge for the District of Montana since 2008.”

“Hang him from the highest tree. I’ll bring the rope.”

— Sarah Palin, quoted by USA Today, on former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, who has been accused of sexually assaulting children.