University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law DigitalCommons@UM Carey Law Faculty Scholarship Francis King Carey School of Law Faculty 1993 The Nonmajoritarian Difficulty: Legislative Deference to the Judiciary Mark A. Graber University of Maryland School of Law,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/fac_pubs Part of the Constitutional Law Commons Digital Commons Citation Graber, Mark A., "The Nonmajoritarian Difficulty: Legislative Deference to the Judiciary" (1993). Faculty Scholarship. 518. https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/fac_pubs/518 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Francis King Carey School of Law Faculty at DigitalCommons@UM Carey Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UM Carey Law. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Studies in American Political Development, 7 (Spring 1993), 35-73. Printed in the United States of America. MARK A. GRABER Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin The NonmajO{itarian Difficulty: Legislative Deference to the Judiciary* 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.