Former US Supreme Court reporter pens new book on the Burger Court of the 1970s and 80s

BY Rob Lorei

Our guest on Radioactivity Tuesday was  Linda Greenhouse, who  covered the US Supreme Court for the New York Times for almost 30 years. She’s just co-written a new book about the Burger Court—named after the chief justice Warren Burger—from 1969-1986. Some scholars consider the court a moderate transitional court—between the liberal Warren Court and the very conservative Rehnquist Court. But in her new book, The Burger Court and the Rise of the Radical Right,   Greenhouse argued that the Burger court was much more conservative than its reputation and it paved the way for the conservative Supreme Court era that began with Rehnquist in 1986 and continues through the Robert Court of today.