“An intriguing idea from a great legal mind.”—Washington Monthly

An innovative solution to the antidemocratic overreach of the Supreme Court, drawing on lessons from constitutional democracies around the world.

For the foreseeable future, America is stuck with a Supreme Court compromised by a crisis of legitimacy. Beyond expanding presidential power, dismantling voting rights, and protecting other forms of antidemocratic government, the Court continues to usurp lawmaking power that should belong to the people and their elected representatives in a constitutional democracy. 

Julie C. Suk offers a novel solution to the problems plaguing the Supreme Court: a Shadow Court. All over the world, shadow governments act as watchdogs for representative democracies, and constitutional courts prevent slides into authoritarianism. Suk shows how Congress can build on these modern models and break the Supreme Court's monopoly on constitutional interpretation by creating a Shadow Court that would decide contested constitutional questions in the abstract before the Supreme Court could rule on them in a concrete case. Ambitious but pragmatic, The Shadow Court offers a hopeful and enduring solution for rescuing democracy in the United States.