For over a century, Americans have accepted a basic premise: that nine justices, not the people, get the final word on what the Constitution means. In Supremacy: How Rule by the Court Replaced Government by the People, legal scholar Daphna Renan argues that "judicial supremacy" was never required by the Constitution — it was seized, after Reconstruction, to weaken democracy rather than protect it. Renan joins NPR's Peter Sagal for an urgent conversation on how the Court took this power, and what it would take for Americans to reclaim it.

This program is presented in partnership with the Northwestern University Buffett Institute for Global Affairs.

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