Still, the existing federalist doctrines contain the seeds of their own expansion. The Court's reluctance to confront Congress suggests that the Court should reimpose limits to national power when it has a realistic chance of getting away with it. Quite clearly, the Supreme Court has reintroduced federalism as a constitutional concern. The central question is whether political constituencies will take advantage of that opening for a federalist revival, and, if so, whether the Court can bring itself to cooperate with those constituencies. Most have maintained highly decentralized organizations.
None pursue the redistributionist objectives that draw ordinary economic interests into the Beltway.
By design the most nationalist and most elitist of all our institutions, the Supreme Court is naturally suspicious of an open, indeterminate politics that would leave too much beyond the reach of the Constitution. That mutual distrust need not be permanent, however. For a full decade, the Court has methodically curtailed racial preferences. A similar dynamic may be unfolding in the area of religion, where the Supreme Court has moved from the selective disenfranchisement of religion to official neutrality as the constitutional baseline. In a departure from past precedent, the Court has held repeatedly that religious groups and institutions may participate in public subsidy and financial aid programs.