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Historically, the political question doctrine has held the courts from resolving constitutional issues that are better left to other departments of government, as a way of maintaining the system of checks and balances. However, this book discusses the gradual changes in the parameters of the doctrine, including its current position dealing with increasingly extraterritorial concerns.
The application of the Political Question Doctrine is at a crucial crossroads as the Supreme Court continues to test new 'War on Terrorism' initiatives. Historically, the political question doctrine has held the courts from resolving constitutional issues that are better left to other departments of government, as a way of maintaining the system of checks and balances. However, the doctrine's many ambiguities have allowed a roughly defined juxtaposition of the branches of government during previous years when the Republic was concerned with both international matters and those within its continental confines. The Political Question Doctrine and the Supreme Court of the United States discusses the gradual changes in the parameters of the doctrine, including its current position dealing with increasingly extraterritorial concerns. Nada Mourtada-Sabbah and Bruce E. Cain bring together critical essays that examine the broad issues of judicial involvement in politics and the future of the doctrine. With a wide range of historical and theoretical perspectives, this book will stimulate debate among those interested in political science and legal studies.
Historically, the political question doctrine has held the courts from resolving constitutional issues that are better left to other departments of government, as a way of maintaining the system of checks and balances. However, this book discusses the gradual changes in the parameters of the doctrine, including its current position dealing with increasingly extraterritorial concerns.
Article III of the Constitution restricts the jurisdiction of federal courts to deciding actual "Cases" and "Controversies." The Supreme Court has articulated several "justiciability" doctrines emanating from Article III that restrict when federal courts will adjudicate disputes. One justiciability concept is the political question doctrine, according to which federal courts will not adjudicate certain controversies because their resolution is more proper within the political branches. Because of the potential implications for the separation of powers when courts decline to adjudicate certain issues, application of the political question doctrine has sparked controversy. Because there is no precise test for when a court should find a political question, however, understanding exactly when the doctrine applies can be difficult. The doctrine's origins can be traced to Chief Justice Marshall's opinion in Marbury v. Madison; but its modern application stems from Baker v. Carr, which provides six independent factors that can present political questions. These factors encompass both constitutional and prudential considerations, but the Court has not clearly explained how they are to be applied. Further, commentators have disagreed about the doctrine's foundation: some see political questions as limited to constitutional grants of authority to a coordinate branch of government, while others see the doctrine as a tool for courts to avoid adjudicating an issue best resolved outside of the judicial branch. Supreme Court case law after Baker fails to resolve the matter. The Court has historically applied the doctrine in a small but disparate number of cases, without applying clear rules for lower courts to follow. Possibly as a result of the murky nature of the doctrine, it has regularly been invoked in lower federal courts in cases concerning foreign policy. However, a recent Supreme Court case, Zivotofsky v. Clinton, appears to have narrowed the scope of the political question doctrine. In a suit seeking the vindication of a statutory right in the foreign affairs context, the Court reversed a lower court's finding that the case posed a political question. The Court explained that the proper analysis in such a situation begins not by asking whether adjudicating the case would require review of the foreign policy decisions of the political branches, but instead examining whether the plaintiff correctly interpreted the statute, followed by determining whether the statute was constitutional. The Court's opinion appears to restrict the types of claims that can pose political questions, and seems to encourage courts to decide more statutory claims on the merits. In turn, the decision could lead to increased judicial resolution of controversies concerning the separation of powers, rather than resolutions between the political branches themselves.
Article III of the Constitution established the judicial branch of the United States, consisting of the Supreme Court and of any "inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.... " To staff such courts, the Constitution empowered life-tenured and salary-protected judges to adjudicate certain "cases" or "controversies," including cases arising under the Constitution. The Supreme Court, in Marbury v. Madison, held that the judicial power to interpret the Constitution necessarily includes the power of judicial review--that is, the power to countermand the decisions by other government agents because a given decision contravenes the Constitution. The Supreme Court has established a host of loosely related rules generally called the constitutional avoidance doctrine that discourage a federal court from issuing broad rulings on matters of constitutional law. After providing general background on the power of judicial review and the major theories on the constitutional avoidance doctrine, this book explores the various rules that allow a court to avoid a ruling that invalidates a democratically enacted law and the logic behind those rules. This book provides an exploration of how the doctrine of constitutional avoidance has influenced some of the recent jurisprudence of the Roberts Court, criticisms of the doctrine, and the implications for Congress. The book also discusses the justiciability and the separation of powers in the political question doctrine, which the Supreme Court has articulated to restrict when federal courts will adjudicate disputes.
For decades political scientists studying the Court have adopted behavioral approaches and focused on the relatively narrow question of how the justices' policy preferences influence their voting behavior. This emphasis has illuminated important aspects of Supreme Court politics, but it has also left unaddressed many other important questions about this unique and fascinating institution. Drawing on "the new institutionalism" in the social sciences, the distinguished contributors to this volume attempt to fill this gap by exploring a variety of topics, including the Court's institutional development and its relationship to broader political contexts such as party regimes, electoral systems, social movements, social change, legal precedents, political identities, and historically evolving economic structures. The book's initial chapters examine the nature of the Court's distinctive norms as well as the development of its institutional powers and practice. A second section relates the development of Supreme Court politics to the historical development of other political institutions and social movements. Concluding chapters explore how its decision making in particular areas of law or periods of time is influenced by—and influences—its socio-political milieu. These contributions offer provocative insights regarding the Court's role in maintaining or disrupting political and economic structures, as well as social structures and identities tied to ideology, class, race, gender, and sexual orientation. The Supreme Court in American Politics shows how we can develop an enriched understanding of this institution, and open up exciting new areas of research by placing it in the broader context of politics in the United States.
Almost since the beginning of the republic, America's rigorous separation of powers among Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches has been umpired by the federal judiciary. It may seem surprising, then, that many otherwise ordinary cases are not decided in court even when they include allegations that the President, or Congress, has violated a law or the Constitution itself. Most of these orphan cases are shunned by the judiciary simply because they have foreign policy aspects. In refusing to address the issues involved, judges indicate that judicial review, like politics, should stop at the water's edge--and foreign policy managers find it convenient to agree! Thomas Franck, however, maintains that when courts invoke the "political question" doctrine to justify such reticence, they evade a constitutional duty. In his view, whether the government has acted constitutionally in sending men and women to die in foreign battles is just as appropriate an issue for a court to decide as whether property has been taken without due process. In this revisionist work, Franck proposes ways to subject the conduct of foreign policy to the rule of law without compromising either judicial integrity or the national interest. By examining the historical origins of the separation of powers in the American constitutional tradition, with comparative reference to the practices of judiciaries in other federal systems, he broadens and enriches discussions of an important national issue that has particular significance for critical debate about the "imperial presidency."