Replies below:
> So how does the Supreme Court have any power? While can't Congress
> always credibly threaten "Say our laws are constitutional, or else we'll
> add more justices who will!"?
The minority party in the Senate has a lot of power if they have at least
40%. They can block the majority with some ease through filibuster.
Thus, minorities can effectively defend unpopular Court justices by
filibustering court expansion legislation.
> Now of course, FDR tried "court-packing" in the 30's and lost serious
> credibility. But if his policies were popular, why would it hurt his
> popularity to add justices who would approve them?
I should remind you that tinkering with the Court infringes on
Congressional power and Congress would probably rally support to stop
infringements. Finally, I should add that after 1936 FDR's popularity
started to decline as measured by % of popular vote. Despite the modern
opinion, he was far from all powerful and it was not impossible
to block new deal programs.
> body. People who didn't like Bork often still got angry that the Senate
> would have the nerve to reject him. But why isn't "Borking" the norm?
Repeated interaction - Bork too often and all legislation comes to a
stand still. The real question is who gets Borked. IIRC, Scalia was
the one the Reagan administration expected the harshest fight on. The
fight for Bork was somewhat unexpected. I think the creation of political
targets is the real question and starts getting the issue of framing.
> I don't have a full account here, but in both cases I detect a sort of
> "delegation illusion" where principals pick agents to do their bidding,
> but then disclaim any responsibility for their agents' actions - and
> voters fall for it. But in these two examples we have the flip side of
> the delegation illusion - when the principals *try* to exert the control
> that the written rules give them, people get angry at them for
> interfering with the agents' activities.
> Prof. Bryan Caplan
Do presidents really disclaim responsibility? Alot of campaign rhetoric
revolves around "vote for me and I'll appoint judges to overturn X."
As far as the flip side of delagation illusion, I would argue that you
seem to simplify things quite a bit. Controlling the judiciary
happens in some form of a repeated game where the pay-offs are unclear
and the minority can weild a significant amount of power. This would
mean that the judiciary can resist control to some degree.
-fabio
