Court stereotype is inaccurate
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Re “Conservative courts likely Bush legacy,” Jan. 2
The Times allows Washington attorney Bradford Berenson to pass along a time-honored but incorrect stereotype about judicial behavior. Berenson claims that conservative justices are less prone to overturn the statutory actions of legislative bodies than are their liberal peers. That is not the case. A study analyzing Supreme Court voting behavior between 1994 and 2005 found that the conservative justices were in fact the most willing to strike down congressional statutes.
At 66% to 28%, Justice Clarence Thomas was more than twice as likely to strike down established law as was Justice Stephen G. Breyer. Rhetoric aside, very few Americans of any political persuasion oppose judicial activism when it settles an issue in the way they deem correct.
Roger G. Robins
Rancho Palos Verdes
The writer is assistant professor of history and political science at Marymount College.
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