Judicial Activism in the United States is unjust.

The Con will first rebut the Pro's original case, then rebut the last Round of arguments. == Round 1== 1. The Pro first states that judicial activism lets judges ignore the consensus of the Constitution and make personal decisions, going against the majority of the voices of the people and instead replacing it with one opinion. -However, judicial activism is good for democracy and for Constitutional focus because it uncovers previously unknown rights in the Constitution, bringing them to the attention of the masses. "The most celebrated of the first [class actions] concerned the administration of welfare especially the Supreme Court rulings that children could not be denied welfare on the grounds that their mother was living with a man to whom she was not married; that welfare could not be cut off before the recipient had exercised her right to a fair hearing; that states could not apply length of residence conditions in the granting of welfare. Each of these rulings defined and extended the right to welfare[...] They uncovered rights implicit in the law and the constitution which had not previously been recognized[...] Such cases not only introduced new interpretations of the law, but brought new information to light. Courts can also inject additional information into bureaucracies by making new facts known through court proceedings." (1) -Judicial activism, even when it fails, also takes Constitutional law and displays it in a relevant way that can be studied by the public, not described in the difficult-to-perceive government context. "It is not just that new facts were presented, but presented in a setting where they could not be dismissed. The courtroom is a public forum, attended by the press, where the presiding judge must consider the implications of all relevant evidence, and may have power to restrain administrative action. Governing institutions no longer control the context of discussion, and must answer convincingly or risk their case. Action in law can therefore be seen as an alternative solution to at least one of the problems of communication we set out above. It cannot break down the barriers to communication between administrative jurisdictions, nor within the bureaucratic hierarchy, but it can force the interests and knowledge of citizens on the attention of administrators not only to protect their individual rights, but to influence matters of public policy." (1) -For these two reasons, judicial activism is actually good for Constitutional democracy. 2. The Pro's next argument is that slow decision-making by the Supreme Court frustrates the people and persuades them to respond with violent, vigilante actions and causes anarchy. - The Pro believes that this argument is irrelevant to whether judicial activism is just for 2 reasons. 1) The Pro is trying to use this argument as a reason to persuade the voters to vote against judicial activism and instead support Congressional activism. However, even if the Supreme Court were to take a long time ruling on a case, Congress would take a similarly long amount of time to pass legislation on the ruling or on its own. Congressional sessions consist of many debates, earmarks, committee hearings, lobbying, and votes. In fact, many bills aren't even enacted immediately; they have a future date to be set into action. This long process will also induce some people to violent self-help. - 2) Cases that are not judicial activism also take the same amount of time. This means that even in a world where there is zero judicial activism, court cases would still take the same long time to be decided and the same people would resort to vigilantism. -Therefore, the Pro has made a compelling argument as to why 1) the government sucks or why 2) the court system sucks. However, what it doesn't do is give a reason why judicial activism sucks. Therefore, don't worry about this point. == Round 2== -The Pro uses the examples of the Voting Acts of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as examples of Congress taking action on social issues. The Con simply states that this is only fuel for the Con's rocket-like arguments. The Con would like to call attention to its Point 1 in Round 1. The Con said, "It may take years for long-time-coming-decisions such as welfare reform, civil rights, or new public opinion on foreign wars to pass through Congress." The Pro's two examples prove this point, as the first action for civil rights was the Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954.(2) Congress took action almost 10 years after the Supreme Court first recognized that segregation should be considered illegal. Another precedent can be found in 1948, when the Supreme Court ruled in Shelley v. Kraemer(3) that state governments can not enforce discrimination in private real estate sales, which would be an important precedent that would allow blacks many years later to perform sit-ins at other private places to protest segregation and ultimately prompt the Civil Rights Act the Pro mentioned above. Therefore, the Con argues that these two examples prove the Con's Point 1 and 2 in Round 1; the Shelley v. Kraemer would later promote increased movements in the form of sit-in protests and the social reform of Brown v. Board of Education brought change long before Congress acted. -Next, the Pro says that the unequal percentage of race in the court system would mean unequal democratic representation. In response, the Con argues that judicial activism doesn't mean that the courts are the only legislating branch. Congress still makes dozens of bills regarding everything from the budget for NASA, discussions of possible new tax changes or systems, and the administration of foreign aid. Judicial activism just means that whenever a bill or currently existing law is skewed and flawed, the Supreme Court will expand or contract the meaning of past rulings or interpretations to correct the mistake. Even with the unevenness of race (83.2%/4.5%/8.8%), this would only affect a small percentage of law (the Supreme Court doesn't argue with Congress on absolutely everything it says). Therefore, the majority of legislating will still occur in Congress, where races are more equally represented. The Con argues that any racial skew in Supreme Court decisions won't have much effect. -Finally, the Pro says that public opinion is difficult for Supreme Court justices to grasp. However, the Supreme Court is an expert on this. "The problem for courts is to determine, at the moment of decision, whether our collective values on a given issue have converged to a degree that they can be persuasively crystallized and credibly absorbed into legal doctrine... Yet the task is familiar to common law adjudication and, as noted earlier, pervades the interpretive work of courts on a wide range of constitutional questions." (4) This source not only addresses the issue, but states that courts are used to the "common" issue and are aware of it throughout their work. Therefore, they should be considered experts on considering the social consensus. == To sum up== Therefore, the Con is extending its two points from Round 1 that the Supreme Court helps political movements and gets social reform done. The Con would be glad to give the sources quoted from journals and such to anybody who asks for them. The Con also would like to apologize for finishing his argument in the last 10 minutes of the time.... again... It takes two to tango, so show me what you got. (1) Peter Marris and Martin Rein, sociologist and novelist at the Institute of Community Studies (2) http://en.wikipedia.org... (3) http://en.wikipedia.org... (4) Goodwin Liu, Associate Dean and Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley School of Law, "Rethinking Constitutional Welfare Rights", Stanford Law Review, 61 Stan. L. Rev. 203, November 2008, Lexis