When Should Judges Defer?
Will: I’ve enjoyed your and Dave’s posts on originalism – are you familiar with Rosenberg’s “hollow hope” argument against court-instigated progressive change? In a nutshell, Rosenberg argues that the courts are a bad forum for progressive change because they a) frequently incite cultural backlash, b) defuse efforts aimed at legislative and cultural change and c) are generally inhospitable to grassroots activism.
Mark: Sully linked to this piece from Prof. Volokh that I think serves as a very nice linkage between my point on judicial activism and Rosenberg’s empirical argument on judicial capacity for creating change (though not his normative argument). Volokh’s argument is that the Iowa legislature’s decision to include sexuality in its anti-discrimination laws initiated a “slippery slope” by creating an analogue for the Iowa Supreme Court to apply in determining whether the prohibition on SSM violated Equal Protection. Assuming Prof. Volokh is correct, this suggests the following:
April 9, 2009 13 Comments
