Judicial Review and American Activism

By Robert Winn

Judicial review was introduced into the American government by a Supreme Court decision, Marbury v. Madison, in 1803. This book details the effects of judicial review on the United States up to the present day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Winn
• Release date: Mar 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301716289

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Judicial Review and American Activism

Robert B. Winn

Copyrighted 2013 by Robert B. Winn

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Chapter 1

Americans of today seem to be increasingly disappointed and dissatisfied with their government. People of all political persuasions say the same thing, Washington is broken. But when they are asked, How do we fix Washington? the answers given are varied and contradictory. Democrats say that taxes need to be raised on the rich. There is no longer a middle class. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. There needs to be a re-distribution of wealth. We need social programs run by the government.

Wrong, say Republicans. Socialism does not work. Look at Europe. We need to return to a free market economy. Any meddling by government only makes things worse. We need to cut government spending.

It is probably significant that the two parties only seem to talk about money when they propose how to fix Washington. Indeed, Congress seems to do little except debate over budgets, projects of faction, economic problems, and job and stimulus programs. But neither party has the means to fix the problem as long as the other party will only support its own agenda. Congress remains deadlocked, unable to do more than pass emergency measures as time runs out on deadlines. Meanwhile, the popularity of Congress, the branch of government that represents the people, continues to plummet. One columnist took this unpopularity to its extreme.

"There’s something Americans like even less than communism: Congress.

"According to a recent Gallup poll, Congress’ approval rating is sitting at only 13 percent, continuing a historic low point in popularity. As a result of such a low popularity, some have taken it upon themselves to compare this to the popularity of other subjects.

"One such person is Senator Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), who created a chart to help explain just how low these numbers are. Although Gallup puts Congress’ popularity at 13 percent, Bennet uses a recent New York Times/CBS poll which found it to be even lower at 9 percent.

"As previously mentioned, one of the subjects was communism--specifically America becoming communist. According to a Rasmussen poll performed this year, 11 percent of people polled were OK with the idea of America going communist.

"If that doesn’t cause a surprise, some of the other numbers should help. After the oil spill in the Gulf, BP stood at 16 percent. Nixon held 24

percent during Watergate, and banks were still hovering 23 percent as of this year, all according to Gallup polls.

"Clearly, Congress isn’t very popular right now.

"One last figure that some people like to bring up to help hammer this point home is the popularity of King George during the