4 ms·

Okay, fine, but doesn't that mean the Court should have a staff of policy researchers to verify these claims?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
tptacek 12y ago
A tiny minority of all significant cases get cert at SCOTUS. So really, you're suggesting an even larger staff of policy researchers covering all the federal courts. Note, when you consider that, that those courts can barely keep up with their caseloads as it stands. Really, the reason this doesn't already exist is because as far as the Article III courts are concerned, it does: it's called the legislature. The constitutional design of our government assumes that legislatures are far better fact-finding bodies than courts are. Our balance of powers is especially sensitive to the issue that the courts, built up further than they are now, would in effect be a panel of unelected lifetime-tenure philosopher-kings.
- pessimizer 12y ago
  >So really, you're suggesting an even larger staff of policy researchers covering all the federal courts. Note, when you consider that, that those courts can barely keep up with their caseloads as it stands. I don't understand why you wouldn't throw more resources at something that seems under-resourced. Am I missing something?
  - x1798DE 12y ago
    Presumably there's a limited amount of money that people are (and should be) willing to shell out for this sort of thing. I think the point is that if those resources were available, they would likely be spent on adding more personnel to exacerbate the existing problems, not adding fact-checkers for the entire federal system.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    The problem isn't the resources. It's the avoidance of creating an unelected bureaucracy with a lot of power. As it is, the judiciary is really quite lean. The Justices have a secretary, and four clerks, usually recent grads that only spend a year on the job. And that's really it in terms of staff, discounting court administrative staff. The lower courts are all just as lean. If you add a staff of researchers, you're adding a whole new class of people with influence.
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  The constitutional design of our government assumes that legislatures are far better fact-finding bodies than courts are. This is the core of the rational basis test. As long as the court can find some remotely rational basis for a law to exist, broad deference is given to the legislature. For example, if the legislature cites a study showing that vaccines cause autism and therefore should be banned, it's not the job of the court to assess the methodology of the study. In contrast, if the sole justification one could come up with is a non-sequitur ("lets ban vaccines because then the wind might blow and break some windows"), a law would fail the rational basis test. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_basis_review http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_basis_review See also "footnote four", which is one of those weird bits of supreme court lore that is nearly a constitutional amendment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Carolene_Products_Co.#Footnote_Four http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Carolene_Produ...
mjn 12y ago
It sort of does; the justices' law clerks do this kind of research, often digging up data or analysis to cite in support of an opinion's claimed policy effects (not all of these references come directly from amicus briefs). I believe this is particularly common when a justice wants to refute a claim in an opinion on the other side; they'll instruct their law clerks to research the claim and see if it's really solid, or if it can be undermined.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

A tiny minority of all significant cases get cert at SCOTUS. So really, you're suggesting an even larger staff of policy researchers covering all the federal courts. Note, when you consider that, that those courts can barely keep up with their caseloads as it stands. Really, the reason this doesn't already exist is because as far as the Article III courts are concerned, it does: it's called the legislature. The constitutional design of our government assumes that legislatures are far better fact-finding bodies than courts are. Our balance of powers is especially sensitive to the issue that the courts, built up further than they are now, would in effect be a panel of unelected lifetime-tenure philosopher-kings.

pessimizer 12y ago
>So really, you're suggesting an even larger staff of policy researchers covering all the federal courts. Note, when you consider that, that those courts can barely keep up with their caseloads as it stands. I don't understand why you wouldn't throw more resources at something that seems under-resourced. Am I missing something?
- x1798DE 12y ago
  Presumably there's a limited amount of money that people are (and should be) willing to shell out for this sort of thing. I think the point is that if those resources were available, they would likely be spent on adding more personnel to exacerbate the existing problems, not adding fact-checkers for the entire federal system.
- rayiner 12y ago
  The problem isn't the resources. It's the avoidance of creating an unelected bureaucracy with a lot of power. As it is, the judiciary is really quite lean. The Justices have a secretary, and four clerks, usually recent grads that only spend a year on the job. And that's really it in terms of staff, discounting court administrative staff. The lower courts are all just as lean. If you add a staff of researchers, you're adding a whole new class of people with influence.
yummyfajitas 12y ago
The constitutional design of our government assumes that legislatures are far better fact-finding bodies than courts are. This is the core of the rational basis test. As long as the court can find some remotely rational basis for a law to exist, broad deference is given to the legislature. For example, if the legislature cites a study showing that vaccines cause autism and therefore should be banned, it's not the job of the court to assess the methodology of the study. In contrast, if the sole justification one could come up with is a non-sequitur ("lets ban vaccines because then the wind might blow and break some windows"), a law would fail the rational basis test. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_basis_review http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_basis_review See also "footnote four", which is one of those weird bits of supreme court lore that is nearly a constitutional amendment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Carolene_Products_Co.#Footnote_Four http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Carolene_Produ...

mjn 12y ago

It sort of does; the justices' law clerks do this kind of research, often digging up data or analysis to cite in support of an opinion's claimed policy effects (not all of these references come directly from amicus briefs). I believe this is particularly common when a justice wants to refute a claim in an opinion on the other side; they'll instruct their law clerks to research the claim and see if it's really solid, or if it can be undermined.