[EL] Brad Smith's view of the reason for judicial review

[Joe La Rue]

Aye. But weren't most legislators in the South in those days "white racists?" Wasn't that one of the primary reasons the VRA was needed? And, if that's right, doesn't Brad's point stand? 

On Feb 27, 2013, at 8:27 PM, Morgan Kousser <kousser at hss.caltech.edu> wrote:

>   I do believe that the African-Americans whose political, economic, and social rights were protected or restored by judicial invalidation of legislation that didn't sound nice to anyone except white supremacists would disagree with Brad's ultimately cynical view that "the primary reason for judicial review of constitutional matters [what other kind of "judicial review" is there?] is that politicians will be afraid to vote against legislation that sounds nice."  And probably a few teachers of constitutional law, not to mention other "discrete and insular minorities" might agree with them.
> Morgan
> -- 
> 
> Prof. of History and Social Science, Caltech
> surface mail:  228-77 Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91125-7700
> phone 626-395-4080, fax 626-405-9841
> home page:  <http://www.hss.caltech.edu/~kousser/Kousser.html>
>   . . . without the clarity that makes doubt productive, historians will never be able to fulfill their highest moral responsibility, to build a better world . . .
>                       -- from "The New Postmodern Southern Political History"
>   Perfection . . . in any institution is a dangerous myth; there is only the repeated correction of imperfections.  As long as there is discrimination, there will always be more work to do. 
>                        -- from "The Strange, Ironic Career of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act"
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing list
> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20130227/1a9abee5/attachment.html>