Finally, a Harvard Professor who gets it right.
Many observers, especially Democrats, have deplored the fact that the Supreme Court is now sitting with just eight justices, thanks to the partisan standoff over replacing the late Antonin Scalia. But the current situation has had an unexpected consequence: a significant increase in judicial “minimalism” and a big decrease in grand, far-reaching rulings. Both Democrats and Republicans should be celebrating—and hoping that the court continues to embrace the minimalist approach to constitutional law after the current vacancy is filled.
Chief Justice John Roberts has long championed what he calls “the cardinal principle of judicial restraint—if it is not necessary to decide more, it is necessary not to decide more.” That simple principle contains two different ideas.
The first is that decisions should be narrow rather than wide. If the court is asked to strike down an affirmative-action program, it should focus on that program, not on affirmative action in general. This holds as well for abortion, national-security surveillance and presidential powers: Decide the case at hand and leave other problems for other occasions.
