The role of the Court in our political system 523Resistance from the Other Branches The president and Congress often fight
back when they think the Court is exerting too much influence, which can limit the
Court’s power as a policy-making institution. For the president, this can escalate to
open conflict. In the Take a Stand feature, we discussed President Obama’s criticism
of the Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) in his
State of the Union message and President Trump’s conflict with the federal courts over
his travel ban. Such open conflict with the Court is often criticized as inappropriate.
For example, during his confirmation process, Neil Gorsuch told Senator Richard
Blumenthal (D-CT) that Trump’s criticisms were “disheartening” and “demoralizing”
to independent federal courts.^81 The president can counter the Court’s influence in a
more restrained way by failing to enforce a decision vigorously.
Congress can try to control the Court by blocking appointments it disagrees with
(however, this often involves a disagreement with the president more than the Court),
limiting the jurisdiction of the federal courts, changing the size of the Court, or even
impeaching a judge. The latter three options are rarely used, but Congress often
threatens to take these drastic steps. The most common way for Congress to respond
to a Court decision that it disagrees with is simply to pass legislation that overturns the
decision (if the case concerns the interpretation of a law).Self-Imposed Restraint In general, the Court avoids stepping on the toes of the
other branches unless it is absolutely necessary. The Court often exercises self-
imposed restraint and refuses to act on “political questions”—issues that are outside
the judicial domain and should be decided by elected officials. The practice dates back
to an 1804 dispute over whether a piece of land next to the Mississippi River belonged
to Spain or the United States. The Court observed: “A question like this, respecting the
boundaries of nations, is... more a political than a legal question, and in its discussion,
the courts of every country must respect the pronounced will of the legislature.”^82
A more recent application of the doctrine came when the Washington, D.C.,
district court dismissed a lawsuit from Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY) against
former Speaker John A. Boehner (R-OH) concerning the House of Representatives’
censure of Rangel for tax evasion and other unethical behavior. The district court
dismissed the suit, in part on the grounds that this was a political question that should
be decided by Congress, not the Court: “The House has wide discretion to discipline
its Members under the Discipline Clause, and this Court may not lightly intrude
upon that discretion.”^83 The Court is generally reluctant to get involved in internal
congressional disputes.
Although this self-imposed limitation on judicial power is important, one must
also recognize that the Court reserves the right to decide what a political question is.
Therefore, one could argue that this is not much of a limit on judicial power after all.
For example, for many decades the Court avoided the topic of legislative redistricting,
saying that it did not want to enter that “political thicket.” However, it changed its
position in the 1960s in a series of cases that imposed the idea of “one person, one vote”
on the redistricting process, and it has been intimately involved in redistricting ever
since. The Court’s ability to define the boundaries of political questions is an important
source of its policy-making power.The Court’s Multifaceted Role This “big picture” question about the relationship
of the Court to the other branches boils down to this: Does the judiciary constrain the
other branches, or does it defer to their wishes? Given the responsiveness of the elected
branches to the will of the people, this question can alternatively be stated: Does the
Court operate against the political majority to protect minority interests, or does it
defer to the popular will? The evidence on this is mixed.Full_15_APT_64431_ch14_488-529.indd 523 16/11/18 1:46 PM