While the Court has always had a significant role to play in settling constitutional crises that state and federal laws have created, its power as a branch of the government has probably never been higher in the past 20 years. The legislative branch has become essentially inactive when Congress is politically divided or even unified if the President in power is from the opposing Party. Since political polarization has taken off since the 1990s, the Supreme Court has had a higher policy influencing responsibility to fill the void of more traditional forms of enacting new laws.

In this episode of Unpresidented, we talk about the foundation of the court's power and why the current polarized dynamics are a problem for our democracy.