“Supreme Courtship” by Christopher Buckley (Twelve, 285 pgs., $24),

Opinions by the U.S. Supreme Court have footnotes, so it’s fitting that a novel about that institution would have them, too. But who’d expect them to be so amusing?

It’s all part of the fun in “Supreme Courtship,” a wry behind-the-scenes tale of Washington politics and the nation’s highest court by Christopher Buckley, the political satirist who wrote “Thank You for Smoking.”

We meet President Donald Vanderkamp, whose distinguished nominations to the court have been shot down on the slightest of pretenses by the ambitious chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. So Vanderkamp throws the committee a curve ball, nominating Pepper Cartwright, a beautiful, shrewd and in-your-face Texan who dispenses justice in her TV courtroom.

Cartwright, with her plainspoken appeal and huge public support, wins the job easily. And as she deals with her deeply divided colleagues, she finds herself casting the deciding votes on wacky cases that try her judicial understanding and sense of decency. If a guy’s gun fails to work while he’s robbing a bank, can he sue the manufacturer? If a male shoplifter hides his loot by dressing as a female Muslim in a head-to-toe robe, and he’s caught, can he claim he was the victim of racial profiling even though he’s not Muslim?

When a reluctant Vanderkamp runs for re-election and does everything he can to lose, it leads to a constitutional crisis that lands in the lap of the Supreme Court — and its newest member.

Buckley tells the tale in a fast-moving, breezy style. He gleefully sends up absurdities of modern-day political life, complete with biting footnotes on such topics as the Iowa caucus and political pollsters. No matter what your political views, you can reach only one verdict on this book: hilarious.