This is thinking in public, a program dedicated to intelligent conversation about

front-line theological and cultural issues with the people who are shaping them.

I'm Albert Mowle your host and president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville,

Kentucky.

Ilia Shapiro directs the Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute, a public policy think tank dedicated to the promotion of individual liberty, limited government, and free markets.

Mr. Shapiro earned his JD from the University of Chicago Law School.

He later served as a clerk for Judge E. Grady Jolly for the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

His commentary on fundamental constitutional issues has appeared in the Wall Street Journal,

the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, the Washington Post, USA Today, National Review,

and the New York Times. But today we're going to be talking about his most recent book,

Supreme Disorder, judicial nominations and the politics of America's highest court.

The topic couldn't be more timely and I'm looking forward to this conversation today.

I'lly Shapiro, welcome to thinking in public.

Thanks so much for having me. You know, I just have to say, you have the best timing for any new book release of anyone I have ever known.

Right now with all this going on in our country, the President Trump's nomination of Judge

Amy Koney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

The issues you address in your book, the history you tell,

and the arguments you make, they just could not be better time.

So congratulations.

Yeah, the publisher had to pay extra for that I mean we of

course were timing it to go ahead of the election where we thought the court would be an

issue but not necessarily like this. Yeah you know the thing is there are a lot of books about the Supreme Court and a lot of books about the confirmation process,

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