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What 'Let the Record Show' Reveals About a 200-Year-Old Petty Paperwork Problem That Gave Courts Its Power Today

In “Let the Record Show,” the ACLU’s newest podcast, we discuss how office politics gave courts the power to decide if political decisions are constitutional. It’s led to an array of landmark decisions that continue to protect our civil liberties today.

In the early 1800’s, two founding fathers ended up in a hiring dispute with a political appointee demanding his role as a judge in a lower court. But what started as a petty paperwork problem became a landmark case that established the Supreme Court’s greatest power: judicial review.

On the surface, Marbury v. Madison was a conflict about a presidential transition that upended the appointment of William Marbury, and by default, his political career.…