Congressional Attacks on the Supreme Court: A Mechanism to Maintain, Build, and Consolidate

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (01) ◽  
pp. 100-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dave Bridge ◽  
Curt Nichols
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Party System ◽  
System Development ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Coalitional Politics ◽  
New Hypothesis

Reexamination and reinterpretation of the “mature” (1955–1984) New Deal era of congressional attacks on the Supreme Court reveals a new hypothesis: that Court‐curbing efforts played a previously unrecognized role in party system development. Court rulings that create inter‐ and intraparty tension provide opportunities for various actors to attack the Court in an effort to solidify their faction's standing within national coalitional politics. Congressional attackers can use Court‐curbing resolutions and amendments in efforts to help them maintain coalitional cohesion, build a new majority, or consolidate previous victories. Thus, we might see legislative‐judicial relations as an unrecognized “site” of political development, where coalitional change is opposed and wrought.

scholarly journals Federalists, Federalism, and Federal Jurisdiction

2012 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 205-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison L. LaCroix
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Party System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Federal Judiciary ◽  
Early National ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
History Of ◽  
Federal Jurisdiction ◽  
Political Turmoil

Historians and legal scholars generally agree that during John Marshall's tenure as chief justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1801 to 1835, the federal judiciary expanded its power to interpret the Constitution and asserted with increasing force its authority to speak on behalf of the Union. This single story of judicial nationalism, however, contains two distinct and largely non-overlapping strands. Historians have tended to focus on the Supreme Court alone, to the exclusion of the lower federal courts, and have largely treated early national controversies over the lower federal courts as outgrowths of the political turmoil that accompanied the emergence of the first party system. Legal scholars in the fields of federal courts and constitutional law, meanwhile, have devoted significant attention to the lower federal courts but have largely neglected the history of how those courts developed beyond the key early moments of the Constitutional Convention and the First Congress.

Green stance could be Pyrrhic for US President Trump

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Environmental Regulation ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
Protection Agency ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Supreme Court

Significance The move is the latest in a series of environmental regulation rollbacks by Trump’s administration and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under its head, Andrew Wheeler. Impacts The Supreme Court could decide to weaken the Chevron doctrine that sees courts defer to agencies over legal ambiguities. The Republicans will try to undermine the Democrats’ Green New Deal proposals as expensive and unworkable. Republicans will likely go into the 2020 elections proposing more modest environmental ideas.

Constitutional Law in 1936–37: The Constitutional Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the October Term, 1936

1938 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. Cushman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Minimum Wage ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Political History ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Constitutional Decisions

The 1936 term of the Supreme Court will probably be rated a notable one. This is due both to the Court's own work, and to certain extraneous occurrences which could hardly fail to have some impact upon it. In any attempt to evaluate the work of this term, one should bear in mind the following facts: First, a month after the Court convened President Roosevelt was reëlected by one of the most impressive popular and electoral majorities in our political history. Second, in February the President submitted to Congress his proposal for the reorganization of the Supreme Court, including the enlargement of its membership by the addition, up to fifteen, of a new justice for every one remaining on the Court beyond the age of seventy. This proposal aroused violent opposition, the debates on it continued for many months, and ultimately the plan was defeated largely through the efforts of the President's own party. The discussions on this proposal were going on during much of the time in which the Court was sitting. Third, in every case in which New Deal laws were attacked, they were held valid. These results were accomplished in many instances by five-to-four margins, and in the Minimum Wage Case by a five-to-four reversal of a previous five-to-three decision.

scholarly journals Holding the Accountability Problem Accountable: Response Mechanisms to Counter-Majoritarian Decisions

2016 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Dave Bridge
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
New Deal ◽  
School Prayer ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Narrow Definition ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Federal Judges

<p>If the Supreme Court rules against the wishes of the majority, how can that majority respond?  I argue that while federal judges will never stand for election, majorities can employ various response mechanisms to counter-majoritarian decisions.  I draw out observable expectations for inter-branch, local, and electoral responses.  I then test these expectations in cases from the “mature” New Deal—communism, school prayer, busing, and abortion—showing the range of effective results achieved by anti-Court majorities.  Given these results, I conclude that there is no “accountability problem”; there is just a narrow definition of accountability.</p>

The Mandate of the Ninth Amendment: Why Footnote Four Is Wrong

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randy E. Barnett
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Progressive Era ◽  
New Deal ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Ninth Amendment ◽  
The New Deal

This chapter examines the revival of the presumption of constitutionality and its almost immediate qualification in the form of Footnote Four, which it argues is inconsistent with the Ninth Amendment. The era in which the Supreme Court attempted to scrutinize the necessity and propriety of state and federal restrictions on liberty came to a close as the perceived legitimacy of legislative activism continued to grow. The doctrinal vehicle used by the New Deal Court to overturn the Progressive Era precedents was the adoption of a presumption of constitutionality. The chapter first provides an overview of Footnote Four before discussing the Ninth Amendment, which mandates that unenumerated rights be treated the same as those that are listed. It shows that Footnote Four runs afoul of the text of the Constitution, and more specifically the Ninth Amendment.

The Puzzle of Judicial Institution Building

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Crowe
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Political System ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
Institutional Development ◽  
Institution Building ◽  
Federal Judiciary ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Autonomous Institution

This book explores the historical processes contributing to the rise of the federal judiciary as an independent and autonomous institution of governance in the American political system. More specifically, it examines the puzzle of “judicial institution building” —the puzzle of understanding how the process of “building” the judiciary unfolded over the course of American political development. The book examines how the federal judiciary in general, and the Supreme Court in particular, overcame its early limitations and emerged as a powerful institution of American governance. It also considers the transformation of the federal judiciary from “judicial exceptionalism” to what might be called “architectonic” politics and offers a developmental account of judicial power. The book shows that the story of the judiciary's transformation involved a series of battles over law, courts, and the politics of institutional development.

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