Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-179_o75q.pdf
Page Number: 29

Cite as:  599 U. S. ____ (2023) 

5 

THOMAS, J., concurring 

963 (2018).2 
  Despite  the  support  of  respected  delegates  like  Wilson 
and Madison, the Convention voted against creating a fed-
eral council of revision on four different occasions.  P. Ham-
burger, Law and Judicial Duty 511 (2008).  No other pro-
posal  was  considered  and  rejected  so  many  times.    Ibid. 
Like the council’s supporters, opponents of the proposal un-
derstood that the judicial power is only the authority to “re-
solve  private  disputes  between  particular  parties,”  rather 
than  “matters  affecting  the  general  public.”    Barry  255.  
Working  from  that  shared  premise,  they  reasoned  that  it 
was “ ‘quite foreign from the nature of [the judicial] office to 
make them judges of the policy of public measures,’ ” as “ ‘no 
maxim was better established’ than that ‘the power of mak-
ing ought to be kept distinct from that of expounding, the 
law.’ ”  Ibid. (quoting 1 Farrand 97–98 (E. Gerry); 2 id., at 
75 (C. Strong)); see also 1 id., at 140 (J. Dickinson).  Indeed, 
opponents observed that “the Judges” were “of all men the 
most unfit to” have a veto on laws before their enactment.  
2  id.,  at  80  (J.  Rutledge).    This  was  so  not  only  because 
judges  could  not  be  “presumed  to  possess  any  peculiar 
knowledge of the mere policy of public measures,” id., at 73 
(N.  Ghorum),  but  also  because,  to  preserve  judicial  integ-
rity, they “ought never to give their opinion on a law till it 
comes  before  them”  as  an  issue  for  decision  in  a  concrete 
case or controversy, id., at 80 (J. Rutledge); see also Perez 
v.  Mortgage  Bankers  Assn.,  575  U. S.  92,  121  (2015) 
(THOMAS,  J.,  concurring  in  judgment)  (“[J]udicial  involve-

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2 Later statements of the proposed council’s supporters confirm their 
understanding that the judicial station is incompatible with making pol-
icy judgments.  See Moodie v. Ship Phoebe Anne, 3 Dall. 319 (1796) (Els-
worth, C. J.) (“Suggestions of policy and conveniency cannot be consid-
ered in the judicial determination of a question of right”); 8 Writings of 
James Madison 387 (G. Hunt ed. 1908) (“[Q]uestions of policy and expe-
diency, are unsusceptible of judicial cognizance and decision”).