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The Nonmajoritarian Difficulty: Legislative Deference to the Judiciary*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Mark A. Graber
Mark A. Graber
Affiliation:
Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin
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Extract

Theoretical and descriptive studies of the Supreme Court exhibit a curious parallel. Both usually begin from the premise that judicial review is “a deviant institution in a democratic society.” Much normative work claims that independent judicial policymaking is rarely legitimate in a democracy because, with few exceptions, elected officials rather than appointed judges should resolve social controversies. In a frequently cited passage, Alexander Bickel asserts that the Supreme Court is “a counter-majoritarian force” in our system of government. Much empirical work, by comparison, insists that independent judicial policymaking seldom takes place in a democracy because, with few exceptions, judges appointed and confirmed by elected officials sustain whatever social policies are enacted by the dominant national coalition. Robert Dahl observes that it is “unrealistic to suppose that a Court whose members are recruited in the fashion of Supreme Court justices would long hold to norms of Right or Justice substantially at odds with the rest of the political elite.”

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Studies in American Political Development , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , Spring 1993, pp. 35 - 73
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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115. Craig, Chadha, 103.

116. 424 U.S. 1 (1976).

117. 478 U.S. 714 (1986).

118. Lynch v. Household Finance Corp. 405 U.S. 538, 552 (1972).

119. See Brest, “Who Decides?”

120. See Murphy and Tannenhaus, ”Publicity, Public Opinion and the Court,” 993.

121. Fisher, Constitutional Dialogues, 10 (quoting Chief Justice Earl Warren).

122. 372 U.S. 335 (1963).

123. Of course, the Buckley decision has had major indirect effects on voting choices by significantly affecting the campaign finance options open to different political entrepreneurs.

124. Taylor Branch's description of Republican and Democratic party efforts during the 1960 national election to woo black voters without antagonizing Southern whites offers an excellent illustration of the relatively similar civil rights programs of both major parties at the time. Branch, Taylor, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954–63 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 312–313Google Scholar.

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130. Lunch, The Nationalization of American Politics, 133.

131. For New Jersey and Virginia, see Dodson and Burnbauer, Election 1989.

132. Bickel, The Least Dangerous Branch, 16.

133. Ackerman, Bruce, We The People: Foundations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991)Google Scholar. The canonical works in the substantive rights, originalist, and democratic process schools of constitutional thought are, respectively, Dworkin, Ronald, A Matter of Principle (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985)Google Scholar; Bork, Robert H., The Tempting of America: The Political Seduction of the Law (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990)Google Scholar, and Ely, John Hart, Democracy and Distrust: A Theory of Judicial Review (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980)Google Scholar.

134. The Marshall Court's efforts in the early 1830s to protect the rights of Native Americans may be another example of a truly countermajoritarian ruling. See Cherokee Nationv. Georgia, 5 Peters 1 (1831).

Many Supreme Court decisions can be described as countermajoritarian in the sense that they declare policies unconstitutional that are favored by most Americans. The Supreme Court's school-prayer and flag-burning decisions come to mind. For reasons that need further elaboration, however, these rulings did not strike down policies preferred by clear majorities of the people's elected representatives, the democratic standard normally used by persons concerned with the countermajoritarian problem. See Bickel, The Least Dangerous Branch, 16 (quoted above). Of course, decisions inconsistent with populist conceptions of democracy also present significant theoretical problems that will be explored in future work.

135. Of course, judicial review may be legitimate even when inconsistent with basic features of democratic governance. Walter Murphy and others have consistently reminded scholars that the United States is not a pure, but a constitutional democracy committed to protecting certain values against democratic majorities. See, e.g., Murphy, Fleming, and Harris, 1986, 23–33. Whether judicial review in practice actually advances the values of constitutional democracy, however, is a question with empirical components that members of this school of thought do not fully address.