In a December memo, Frank Wagner, then the court’s reporter of decisions, told the justices and their clerks that he was recommending new style rules to “aid reader comprehension of this very lengthy, complex, and unique decision.”

Indeed, the outline of the decision, known as the syllabus, stretches nearly 20 pages, and the ordinarily short paragraph describing which justices joined which opinions goes on for more than 300 words. All in all, the justices spilled nearly 300 pages of ink in their final opinions.

It was destined to be that way from the time the court agreed to take the case, which involved challenges to various aspects of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, enacted as a way to combat the proliferation of “soft money” in politics.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist seemed to realize that writing the court’s opinion was too big of a job for one justice alone, and the court’s rulings on the various parts of the law were contained in three separate opinions. Arguably the most important of those was co-written by Justices John Paul Stevens and Sandra Day O’Connor and upheld the law’s provisions regulating “soft money” and “electioneering communications.”

“I am grateful that you are willing to share the load with me,” Stevens wrote O’Connor shortly after hearing the case.

The resulting mammoth opinion by the pair received high marks from the court’s longtime junior associate justice at the time, Stephen Breyer. “Dear John and Sandra: You’ve done a fine job on this unusually difficult case. I am pleased to join your opinion.”

The Library of Congress made a large collection of Stevens’ personal papers available last week, three and a half years after the court’s longtime liberal stalwart died at age 99. The trove includes 570 boxes covering the justice’s tenure between 1984 and 2004. Among the landmark cases decided over that period are Bush v. Gore, Lawrence v. Texas and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. 

Fighting Over ‘Scrutiny’