POSC 130g Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: William Rehnquist, American Civil Liberties Union
Document Summary
Implications for legitimacy of democratic political order: purpose is to thwart tyranny of the majority, explains no accountability (life tenure, there need to be people with the courage and the institutional protection to correct injustices, robert dahl"s argument, empirical study showing how often scotus votes in accordance with other branches of government, read his social science investigation, failure of scotus to serve as countermajoritarian institution, current members, samuel alito, stephen breyer, john roberts (chief justice, sonia sotomayor, ruth bader ginsburg, elena kagan, antonin scalia, antony kennedy, clarence thomas. To protect his new deal policies: reagan known for value packing judiciary, obama appointed so many judges that there are more democratically appointed judges in the federal judiciary, how cases reach the court, thousands of appeals through 100 200 heard, half from prisoners en forma pauperis, under 1% sent to scotus heard.
