Source: https://content.sciendo.com/abstract/journals/bjals/7/2/article-p237.xml?rskey=yIuJbQ&amp;result=22
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 20:52:08+00:00

Document:
Given President Donald Trump’s generally non-deferential posture towards national political and governing institutions, why hasn’t his administration produced greater tension with respect to judges, courts, and established norms of judicial independence? Increased politicization of the judiciary, deepening partisanship, and distinct attributes of the President himself all seem to set up a climate of interbranch confrontation likely to challenge judicial independence norms. But at least in the first two years of this presidency, sustained opposition to courts is not evident. This analysis documents and accounts for this puzzle, ultimately contending that the President’s unexpected (and admittedly fragile) institutional comity can be traced to his personal history of relying on legal safeguards and authority as well as a complex stew of partisan and ideological uncertainty about the future direction of courts.
But, on the whole, these reproaches have represented the exception rather than the rule. The President has stepped somewhat lightly around the courts, especially in comparison with his more aggressive posture towards other institutions, such as the press and intelligence community. At least in the first two years of the Trump White House, sustained opposition to courts is the proverbial dog that didn’t bark—a surprising outcome given numerous factors inclining us towards heightened executive-judicial tension, and the clamorous noises otherwise emerging from the bully pulpit.
The following analysis tries to both document and account for this puzzle. I consider and probe a variety of hypotheses for why an iconoclastic and populist President Trump, otherwise suspicious if not outright hostile to governing institutions and their elite leaders, appears to be reticent to take on the judiciary, at least in any consistent or sweeping manner. Ultimately, I contend, a plausible explanation for the President’s unexpected (and admittedly fragile) institutional comity can be traced to Trump’s personal history of relying on legal safeguards and authority, and the complex and still bubbling stew of partisan and ideological uncertainty about the future direction of courts and parties. More broadly, this article provides a framework for understanding the separation of powers in an age of hyper-partisanship and anticipating the consequences of the inevitable future collisions between the administration’s political imperatives, the courts’ judgments, and the broad course of public policy hashed out in the nation’s capital and fifty states.
An initial expectation that the Trump administration’s relations with courts are likely to be strained can be traced to two primary sources: broad trends in interbranch politics, fueled especially by deepening partisanship over the past several decades, and factors more closely tethered to the President’s distinctive governance style.
These claims feed directly to a second, interrelated point: the nation’s thickening atmosphere of hyper-partisanship also makes executive-judicial confrontations more likely. Trump came to power in an era of deepening partisan division. 13 Scholars have demonstrated the rise of elite level party polarization since the 1980s, including, by some measures, greater party conflict inside Congress today than at any point in the post-World War II period. 14 This enflamed partisanship has impacted U.S. national politics and triggered disputes between all three branches of national government. 15 At a minimum, an increasingly polarized set of political leaders are more likely to react to court cases, individual judges, and judicial nominations that have a salient partisan dimension—as identified by leaders, major party statements, important ideological interest groups, and, perhaps, by sharp divisions amongst judges themselves. 16 Indeed some evidence of this influence of polarization on party leaders’ attitudes towards courts can be found in party platforms, where we find steady and growing interest in courts and judicial decisions as a source of political fodder (see Table 1).
Party Platforms Highlighting Judicial Issues and Cases (2000-2016).
Percentage of President’s nominees who were appointed (District Court and Circuit Court judges): 95th through 114th Congresses (1977-2017).
Source: Slotnick, Schiavoni, & Goldman, supra note 18.
Beyond these general assertions about why recent political trends set up the Trump administration for contentious relationships with courts, we can isolate additional aggravating factors more idiosyncratic to the incumbent president. The first of these is Mr. Trump’s observed personalization of politics—a phenomenon with several dimensions.
This blurring of personal and political authority is likely to trigger friction with courts for several reasons. Perhaps most obviously, a personalized approach will tend to see unfavorable court judgments as direct attacks, or instances of disloyalty, rather than principled and impersonal judgments of law. More generally, individualized and personality-driven claims to rule are at odds with both the notion that ours is a “government of separated institutions sharing powers” and customary understandings of the rule of law. 27 In this traditional conception, law is impersonal, prospective, and stable—traits that jar against the personalization of politics embodied in much of the President’s rhetoric. To take just one example of this disjuncture, consider Mr. Trump’s remark during a 2016 campaign event that he could “stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” 28 The statement suggested that even an extreme violation of law would not diminish voters’ intimate ties to, and faith in, the candidate.
This populist strain should also have implications for the administration’s treatment of the judiciary. Most obviously, judges and court systems are an enticing target for the President’s ongoing disruption of the status quo. This is especially likely for federal courts, staffed by highly educated professionals who are structurally sequestered from political and electoral forces. 36 Alexis de Tocqueville’s contention that judges and lawyers in the United States form an embedded and insulated group that resist democratic impulses and the desired “movements of the social body” highlight how the legal class is ripe for populist targeting. 37 Indeed, the 2016 Republican Platform (presumably blessed by Mr. Trump, at least in its broad strokes) gave vent to some of these sentiments. It warned “against opportunistic litigation by trial lawyers,” and further cautioned that “our country’s constitutional order” was threatened by “an activist judiciary that usurps powers properly reserved to the people through other branches of government.” 38 The Platform castigated specific Supreme Court decisions (in areas such as abortion, gay rights, and health care) as expanding “the power of the judiciary at the expense of the people” and called on Congress to use impeachment to check unaccountable judges.
Notwithstanding these and other challenges, however, we have good reasons for thinking they represent less than meets the eye. A review of the official White House search engine finds, for example, no administration reference to “judicial activism” or “legislating from the bench,” two charges that were popular under recent prior Republican administrations. More systematically, if we look at the President’s favored communication method, Twitter, we find relatively infrequent references to courts and judges, and, particularly if we exclude tweets targeting the travel ban rulings, a mix of positive and negative statements. Table 2 summarizes the President’s tweets over his first sixty weeks in office in which he mentions, respectively courts, judges, or Justices on the one hand, and Congress and lawmakers on the other.
Trump Twitter References to Courts and Congress (January 20, 2017-March 15, 2018).
Even some of the President’s “neutral” or non-valenced remarks about the judiciary imply a willingness to recognize the courts, and especially the Supreme Court, as a legitimate if not authoritative forum for conflict resolution. As the President indicated in a February 20, 2018 tweet, he hoped Republicans would challenge a Pennsylvania redistricting map, taking it “all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary.” 45 At times, the President has communicated a cautious deference with respect to the judiciary and gun control. As the President put it in a March 12 tweet: “On 18 to 21 Age Limits, [I am] watching court cases and rulings before acting.” 46 Perhaps most importantly, despite sometimes intemperate remarks about judges and judicial decisions coming from the President and his staff, these rhetorical jabs have, so far, not been joined by either sustained institutional criticism or specific proposals for court-curbing or other sanctions.
As indicated, all of this is somewhat surprising. Given the heated state of judicial politics generally, and President Trump’s enthusiasm for battling other institutions of government and civil society more specifically, why hasn’t the current administration fostered a less hospitable landscape for judges, courts, and judicial independence?
But both of these explanations for the (relative) comity of the Trump administration towards the judiciary are imperfect. With respect to the “issue displacement” thesis, we might note that the President has energetically stoked some crosscutting policy disputes within his party, often in ways that threaten to introduce or at least exacerbate intra-party tensions. For example, we can see some of these inflammatory dynamics in the President’s statements about abortion as well as in his economic nationalism generally, and, more particularly, in his imposition of protective tariffs on a variety of raw materials and manufactured products. 54 Stated differently, if the Trump administration has an inclination to cede some controversial topics to the judiciary, it’s not obvious what these subjects of avoidance actually are.
As to whether Trump might be reluctant to target the judiciary on the grounds that it can help secure his party’s legacy in the face of future electoral defeats, this case is stronger but still uncertain. Undoubtedly, there is some evidence the administration is pursuing this sort of long game with its appointments strategy. 55 On the other hand, one might note that Trump is the wrong sort of candidate to fit into the classic regime preservation framework articulated by scholars like Skowronek. As Whittington points out, presidents are most likely to use a hedge your bets strategy when they are “affiliated” leaders “who must manage an established but fractious political coalition while advancing the contested ideological commitments of the [existing] political regime.” 56 But Trump’s loyalty to his inherited Republican regime is shallow at best. He is no establishment Republican, and has been critical of his party’s congressional and national leadership, and, as noted, on some important, historic GOP positions he has shown a readiness to deviate from party orthodoxy.
For these and other reasons, some scholars have suggested Trump might be better seen as what Skowronek calls a “disjunctive” president—a Chief Executive with little allegiance to the prevailing governing coalition, but a figure who tries, nevertheless, to hold it in place in the face of building political strains. 57 But even this description, which holds that Trump is more like Jimmy Carter than Ronald Reagan, fits the President inadequately. 58 Describing Trump as a disjunctive leader fails to capture his iconoclasm, populism, and other idiosyncratic characteristics that don’t easily square with the prevailing Republican ideology, even though they are signature elements of the President’s governing style. In other words, trying to place Trump into a scheme of regime politics—where the president is either operating within the parameters of an established philosophy of governance, or trying to smash it and forge his own—doesn’t reflect his ideological flexibility, political opportunism, and the degree to which his political approach bears a personal, sui generis stamp. Trump seems to favor his judicial appointments for personal reasons, reflected distinction, and political payoff, and not for advancing deeply seated and long term ideological commitments.
Still another explanation for the administration’s unexpected restraint when it comes to courts may be the most powerful. While admittedly preliminary, some recent work finds teasing indications of partisan and ideological disequilibrium with respect to longstanding perceptions of the courts. 63 As we saw, Table 1 serves as evidence of partisan politicization of courts in the twenty-first century—that is, it corroborates the idea that the two major parties have been increasingly willing to take on judicial decisions and legal controversies as part of their major policy agendas. But a more historical and nuanced consideration reveals a different and more dynamic picture.
Consider, in this regard, the trend lines revealed in Figure 2. This figure lays out what Democratic and Republican party platforms have had to say with respect to the judiciary for every four-year cycle from 1948 to 2016. Until the 1976 platform, both Democrats and Republicans appear to have been deferential to courts in these official party statements, generally avoiding reference to the judiciary entirely. Beginning in 1976, however, we can detect a notable shift in party attitudes, especially for Republicans. GOP platforms became increasingly detailed and negative in discussing courts and judges over this period (while Democrats continued to give judicial politics a low profile). Thus, with the exception of 1984, every Republican platform from 1976 has made at least some negative reference to courts and judges. These statements have objected to specific court decisions in such areas as prayer in school, criminal justice, and, of course, abortion. In addition, beginning with the 1980 platform, the GOP also began calling for the appointment of judges whose rulings would be consistent with their policy and ideological goals. In contrast, Democratic platforms from 1976 through 1996 were mostly silent with respect to courts, reflecting the party’s resistance to having courts enter into national politics, its basic contentment with the judiciary’s role in policymaking, or, most likely, both.
Negative and Positive Statements about Courts in Major Party Platforms (1948-2016).
Today, while liberals fret about such issues as the future of constitutionally protected abortion, affirmative action, civil rights, and campaign finance, many conservatives and Republicans see the courts entering favorable rulings on questions of federal power (United States v. Lopez, 67 City of Boerne v. Flores, 68 United States v. Morrison 69), voting rights (Shelby County v. Holder 70) and even civil liberties (District of Columbia. v. Heller, 71 McDonald v. Chicago, 72 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission 73). All of this has contributed to a climate in which the two major political parties, already at important crossroads with respect to their own ideological and policy futures, are doubly unsteady when it comes to assessing a complex, shifting, and unreliable federal judiciary. For the moment, broad institutional attacks against the courts (from either party) have given way to more opportunistic, transactional, and issue based litigation and policy campaigns.
Seen in this light, the federal judiciary is a positive reference point for the President. Especially since the U.S. Senate has now ushered in a post-“nuclear” age (in which all federal judicial nominees can be confirmed with a simple majority vote), the prospect of future court appointments may strike the President as especially enticing—a political task where Trump will face relatively little opposition, and can claim individual success. With both a cooperative Republican Senate and a list of pre-screened jurists on hand, 80 the President can expect judicial appointments to be gratifying and fairly smooth (particularly in contrast with a lawmaking process that now includes a hostile and Democratic House of Representatives). 81 Such dynamics allow the President to emphasize a personal connection to power and foster positive associations with the courts, as an institution he can depict as a direct extension of himself.
We can distill three basic components of the argument so far: First, given the national climate of partisanship, growing politicization of courts, and distinctive features of Trump’s claims to power and overall stance towards governing, we had good reasons to think that his administration would usher in a period of increased combativeness with respect to courts and judges. Second, notwithstanding this context, we do not find, in the early Trump years, an especially contentious set of statements (or legislative proposals) regarding specific court decisions, judicial independence, or the judiciary as an institution. This relative deference (even, or especially, in the face of some unfavorable rulings) stands in contrast with the President’s statements about other “opponents” (including the “deep state” and the news media).
What is the wider significance of these claims? To begin with, one must concede that over the course of any administration, and, no doubt, during the Trump years in particular, interbranch armistices are fragile. As argued, given our current context of both ideological flux and major party uncertainty regarding a judiciary that is fairly balanced with respect to partisan appointments, it seems difficult to imagine that courts will consistently chafe against the elected branches over the next few years, especially if Republicans remain in power. But it also does not require great imagination to envision a controversial court decision in the area of, say, immigration or national security, or perhaps a judgment against one of the President’s advisors (or family members), triggering a vituperative response from Mr. Trump and his allies. So far, Trump’s disruptive demeanor has been fairly restrained when it comes to judges and courts, but he could easily find a pretext for shattering this rapprochement.
It is also an open question whether the President’s unconventional governing style and ideological orientation will carry over in important ways to his judges. In particular, will the President’s new federal appointees represent a different breed of appointees? Could they, for example, be more apt to give expression to populist values, or communicate directly with the public through new media, or perhaps assume a more confrontational stance with respect to their colleagues on the bench and in the other branches of government. 83 In other words, will the President’s new appointments reflect his assertive and unsettling style—and perhaps challenge existing legal norms regarding such matters as institutional deference, formality, professional ethics, judicial temperament, and a commitment to interstitial (case-based) change?
The latter outcome threatens to leave the judiciary understaffed and dysfunctional during periods when the Senate and president are of different parties, and “as polarized as the rest of the country” when the process runs smoothly but stocks the courts with increasingly ideological and extreme appointees. 89 This prospect should fill us with alarm, not only because it continues the trends of hyper-partisanship and division that have marred the twenty-first century, but because it threatens the very legitimacy of our courts.
As the legal scholar Tom Tyler has shown, people consider the judiciary a unique and authoritative forum for settling social conflicts. We accept the courts’ judgments, even when they seem to go against our own personal interests, because we have public trust in our judges and their commitment to a procedural justice that provides everyone with a genuine and meaningful voice, and the right to be treated with impartiality and respect regardless of race, class, gender, or party. 90 But when we start to see the courts as just another venue for advancing the ideologies and preferences of party leaders, we run the risk of losing our faith in the law as a forum of principle, stability, and fairness.
Dana Milbank, And the Verdict on Justice Kennedy Is: Guilty, Wash. Post, April 9, 2005, at A03.
The Politics of Judicial Independence: Courts, Politics, and the Public 8 (Bruce Peabody ed., 2011) (hereinafter The Politics of Judicial Independence).
The Politics of Judicial Independence, supra note 7.
Katie Benner, Sessions Silent as Trump Attacks His Department, Risking Its Autonomy, N.Y. Times, February 5, 2018, at A14; Lisa Mascaro, Trump again bashes the Republican leaders in Congress he needs to pass his agenda, L.A. Times, August 24, 2017.
Michael D. Shear & Ron Nixon, Vetting Is Little Changed Since Calls for Travel Ban, N.Y. Times, June 12, 2017, at A14.
Marc J. Hetherington & Thomas J. Rudolph, Why Washington Won’t Work: Polarization, Political Trust, and the Governing Crisis (2015).
Sarah A. Binder, Stalemate: Causes and Consequences of Legislative Gridlock (2003); Marc J. Hetherington & Jonathan D. Weiler, Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics (2009); Frances E. Lee, Beyond Ideology: Politics, Principles, and Partisanship in the U.S. Senate (2009); Keith T. Poole & Howard Rosenthal, Congress: A Political-Economic History of Roll Call Voting (1997); Sean M. Theriault, Party Polarization in Congress (2008). Others have contended there is a comparable partisan and ideological split in the public. See, e.g., Alan J. Abramowitz, The Polarized Public: Why American Government is so Dysfunctional (2012); Shanto Iyengar & Sean J. Westwood, Fear and Loathing across Party Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization, 59 Am. J. Pol. Sci. 690 (2015); Gary C. Jacobson, Partisan and Ideological Polarization in the California Electorate, 4 St. Pol. & Policy Q. 113 (2004). A countercurrent of research has downplayed the extent of this mass polarization. Morris P. Fiorina, Samuel J. Abrams & Jeremy C. Pope, Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America (2004).
Charles Gardner Geyh, When Courts and Congress Collide: The Struggle for Control of America’s Judicial System (2008); Hetherington & Rudolph, supra note 13; Barbara Sinclair, Party Wars: Polarization and the Politics of National Policy Making (2006); Mark Jonathan McKenzie, The Influence of Partisanship, Ideology, and the Law on Redistricting Decisions in the Federal Courts, 65 Pol. Res. Q.
Adam Liptak, The Polarized Court, N.Y. Times, May 11, 2014, at SR1.
Robert A. Dahl, Decision-Making in a Democracy: The Supreme Court as a National Policy-Maker, 6 J. Pub. L. 279 (1957); Richard Funston, The Supreme Court and Critical Elections, 69 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 795 (1975); John B. Gates, Supreme Court Voting and Realigning Issues: A Microlevel Analysis of Supreme Court Policy Making and Electoral Realignment, 13 Soc. Sci. Hist. 255 (1989); Keith E. Whittington, “Interpose Your Friendly Hand”: Political Supports for the Exercise of Judicial Review by the United States Supreme Court, 99 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 583 (2005).
Elliot Slotnick, Sara Schiavoni & Sheldon Goldman, Obama’s Judicial Legacy: The Final Chapter, 5 J. L. Courts 363 (2017).
Full transcript available at: https://www.vox.com/2016/7/21/12253426/donald-trump-acceptance-speech-transcript-republican-nomination-transcript (accessed 11 Sept. 2018).
Donald J. Trump, President Obama Will Go Down as Perhaps the Worst President in the History of the United States! Twitter (Aug. 2, 2016, 12:07 PM), https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/ status/760552601356267520?lang=en.
Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents (1960); Joseph Raz, The Authority of Law: Essays on Law and Morality (1979).
L.A. Times, If Trump Pardons Arpaio, He’ll Reward Defiance of the Courts, and That’s Wrong, Aug. 23, 2017.
Yoni Appelbaum, Trump’s Promise to Jail Clinton Is a Threat to American Democracy, The Atlantic, Oct. 10, 2016; Tim Murphy, Trump’s Call to Imprison Hillary Clinton Was More Than a Year in the Making, Mother Jones, November/December, 2016.
Cas Mudde & Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, Populism: A Very Short Introduction (2017).
Jan-Werner Müller, What Is Populism? (2016).
See https://www.vox.com/2016/7/21/12253426/donald-trump-acceptance-speech-transcript-republican-nomination-transcript, supra note 25.
Indeed as Slotnick, Schiavoni, and Goldman note, the profile of Obama’s judicial appointees makes them especially salient as populist targets. After all, “some 44% of the Obama appointees had a prestige legal education,” a figure considerably higher than his immediate predecessors. Slotnick et al., supra note 18 at 363.
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Harvey C. Mansfield & Delba Winthrop, trans., Univ. Chicago Press 2000) (1835).
Ming W. Chin, Judicial Independence: Under Attack Again, 61 HAST. L.J. 1345 (2010).
Rebecca Ballhaus, Trump Defends West Wing Turnover: ‘I Like Conflict,’ Wall St. J., Mar. 6, 2018.
Brent Kendall, Trump Says Judge’s Mexican Heritage Presents ‘Absolute Conflict,’ Wall St. J., June 3, 2016.
Gregory A. Caldeira, Neither the Purse Nor the Sword: Dynamics of Public Confidence in the Supreme Court, 80 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 1209 (1986); Lydia Saad, At 13%, Congress’ Approval Ties All-Time Low. Republicans and Democrats Give Identical Ratings to the Divided Congress, Gallup News Service, Oct. 12, 2011, https://news.gallup.com/poll/150038/Congress-Approval-Ties-Time-Low.aspx; Georg Vanberg, Legislative-Judicial Relations: A Game-Theoretic Approach to Constitutional Review, 45 Am. J. Pol. Sci. 346 (2001).
Mark Graber, The Non-Majoritarian Problem: Legislative Deference to the Judiciary, 7 Stud. Am. Pol. Dev., 35 (1993). See also George I. Lovell, Legislative Deferrals: Statutory Ambiguity, Judicial Power, and American Democracy (2003); J. Mitchell Pickerill, Constitutional Deliberation in Congress: The Impact of Judicial Review in a Separated System (2004).
Whittington, supra note 17 at 593.
Stephen Skowronek, The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to George Bush (1997); Keith E. Whittington, Political Foundations of Judicial Supremacy The Presidency, the Supreme Court, and Constitutional Leadership in U.S. History (2007). See also Ran Hirschl, Towards Juristocracy: The Origins and Consequences of the New Constitutionalism (2004); Howard Gillman, How Political Parties Can Use the Courts to Advance Their Agendas: Federal Courts in the United States, 1875-1891, 96 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 511 (2002).
Whittington, supra note 51 at 167.
Charlie Savage, Courts Reshaped At Fastest Pace In Five Decades, N.Y. Times, November 12, 2017, at A1.
Jonathan D. Moyer & David K. Bohl, Why Trump’s Tariffs Could Weaken U.S. Influence in the World, Wash. Post, March 12, 2018.
Whittington, supra note 17, at 594.
Skowronek, supra note 51, at 39.
Scott Lemieux, Is Donald Trump the Next Jimmy Carter?, The New Republic, Jan. 23, 2017.
Ben Terris, Lawyers upon Lawyers upon Lawyers: In Trump World, Everyone Has an Attorney, Wash. Post, July 26, 2017.
Donald J. Trump & Tony Schwartz, Trump: The Art of the Deal (1987).
Jonathan Mahler, All the President’s Lawyers, N.Y. Times Magazine, July 9, 2017, at 28.
Jeffrey Toobin, The Conservative Pipeline to the Supreme Court, The New Yorker, Apr. 17, 2017.
Steven M. Teles, The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement: The Battle for Control of the Law 2 (2010).
Larry Kramer, The People Themselves: Popular Constitutionalism and Judicial Review 218-220 (2004) (discussing the New Deal “settlement”).
Mark Tushnet, A Court Divided: The Rehnquist Court and the Future of Constitutional Law (2005).
The White House, President Trump’s Weekly Address, Feb. 3, 2017, https://www.whitehouse gov/briefings-statements/president-trumps-weekly-address/.
Shira Scheindlin, Trump’s Crazy Choices for the Courts, N.Y. Times, Nov. 9, 2017.
Mark V. Tushnet, Constitutional Hardball, 37 John Marshall L. Rev. 523 (2004).
See Tom R. Tyler, Why People Obey the Law (1990).

References: sui generis
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 V.