Why Louis Brandeis Matters: Supreme Court Justice Fought Oligarchy, 'Bigness'

The New Republic:

During the past hundred years, [The New Republic] has continued to champion the principles that made Brandeis the greatest constitutional philosopher of the twentieth century: opposition to the curse of bigness, in corporations and government; devotion to judicial restraint in cases involving economic regulations; judicial vigilance in cases involving free speech and civil liberties; and an enthusiasm for Zionism. But this is an especially appropriate time to evaluate Brandeis's legacy. The nomination of Elena Kagan to Brandeis's seat on the Supreme Court comes at a time when progressives are rediscovering the virtues of judicial restraint, as conservatives rush to court to challenge their political defeats in areas ranging from corporate campaign spending to health care reform and economic oversight. And a masterful new biography by Melvin Urofsky offers all the biographical details necessary for reassessing Brandeis's uncanny relevance.

Read the whole story: The New Republic

Comments

[PORK RIND]

12:19 AM on 07/07/2010

There is no doubt that Louis Brandeis was a judicial colossus, a towering giant among fellow justices. This is not in dispute.

What is questionable in this political context is his being marketed at this particular hour. Why now? What is the point?. Is "someone" trying to tell us that - hint, hint - Elena Kagan is our next Louis Brandeis?

In short, what gives?

[spottery2k]

08:58 AM on 07/07/2010

Good question. I find it doubtful. Too much damage to the Constitution has already happened by precedent. Before the ink was even dry the mercantile elite seized upon the first three words, WE THE PEOPLE, and immediately perceived this as a problem that could only be addressed by obfuscating the definition of 'people' to also refer to artificial people (corporations) with all the same strengths and none of their weaknesses or mortality. It would be a new family tree of mythical gods to rule the living, as did the gods of antiquity. The only real difference is that the gods of antiquity were idealistic, not materialistic.

[messy]

02:38 PM on 07/28/2010

Remember, Brandeis became a lawyer just around the time of the CIVIL WAR, and the Supreme Court had declared the bill of rights null and void vis-a-vis the States back in the 1830s.

He was there when the 14th amendment was passed and saw it declared mostly null and void by the Supreme Court. When he became a Justice (after a long and particularly nasty confirmation process), he spent much of his tenure getting what was written in the constitution recognised by the courts.

[hottingers]

11:00 PM on 07/06/2010

The most illuminating part of this article was how he knew what the positions that Brandeis would have on Obama's policy.

[breakingpoint]

10:06 PM on 07/06/2010

Americans fell asleep on their toilets, few even know what a statesmen is.

[Dr Jimmy and Mr Jim]

09:28 PM on 07/06/2010

Louis also said this:

"They, [Those who won our independence], believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that without free speech and assembly discussion would be futile; that with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government."
Supreme Court Justice Louis Dembitz Brandeis

[LiteSleeper]

09:14 PM on 07/06/2010

Brandeis looks like Putin with a wig.

[livesimply]

11:19 PM on 07/06/2010

That's relevant.

[LiteSleeper]

12:22 AM on 07/07/2010

About as much as your snark. Excellent

[PORK RIND]

12:16 AM on 07/07/2010

Yeah, like our Founding Fathers were all GQ and supermodel material. Get real.

[LiteSleeper]

12:22 AM on 07/07/2010

Get over yourself first. It was an observation

[Scentedflower]

08:58 PM on 07/06/2010

Justice Clarence Thomas's wife Ginni is returning to partisan politics in raising money for teaparty in opposition to President Obama.
Married a bla ck man but cannot stand a bla ck president? What is up with you Ginni?

[myth buster]

09:09 PM on 07/06/2010

Everything is race with you people. It couldn't possibly be his policies or his incompetence, now, could it?

[freethinking moderate]

09:22 PM on 07/06/2010

Ummm, no it can't be. Obama's policies help normal people. Her husband's philosophy opresses black people. Reality ain't racist.

[livesimply]

11:20 PM on 07/06/2010

If she had a problem with incompetence, she wouldn't have married Thomas.

[lastep]

08:44 PM on 07/06/2010

I want a judge who follows the law in the supreme court. Period.

[Zip Ominous]

10:17 PM on 07/06/2010

Corporations have more rights than people, according to John Roberts' law.

[roger37]

11:50 PM on 07/06/2010

Total oversimplification. Just like Scalia and the great masses of the Rethug party.

[kfdan]

08:40 PM on 07/06/2010

"In Brandeis’s view, the failure of banker management was not accidental but structural: “It was the natural result of confusing the functions of banker and businessman.”
This is where we sit today. Apart from Brandeis's other comment on accounting fraud and manipulation which is another aspect of what's wrong with today's economics, the end of the 'Glass Staegall act' allowed for the current bank gambling syndrome and the emergence of the 'to big to fail banks.' We really need to end this condition.

[MegWe]

08:31 PM on 07/06/2010

Justice Thomas' sife is at it again (still) How can this possibly be ethical/legal?
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39426.html

[Captimprobable]

08:28 PM on 07/06/2010

Somewhere along the way, instead of it staying a dirty little backroom mantra, we've progressed to a point where Gordon Gecko's "Greed is Good", has become alright not only to espouse...but to openly embrace without worry or fear of being branded unethical.

You don't have to play ball, heck, it seems it's not particularly expected as long as, "you get yours", regardless of who you stepped on to get there and regardless of the harm it does in the bigger picture.

Remorselessness and "creatively skirting rules (since there's no law against it...yet)" are not only attributes hotly desired, but rewarded handsomely.

The completely bizarre thing in all this, is how completely our society has 180'ed to defend these actions as "smart business and you're just mad you didn't think of it."

Didn't think of what? Defrauding or reworking the rules (via loopholes) to earn billions at the infrastructures expense?

I always have to take another look at what I thought I knew of friends, when I hear them say, "well, regardless, you can't blame them for trying, they made a mint!"

Oh yes I can. Even defending one of these corps in the most minor of capacities, who helped us towards depression, is somehow legitimizing and even condoning purposeful efforts to find loopholes and unclear areas to exploit, at the expense of MANY.

When did the shift happen that excuses the well being of the majority, for the extravagance of the few?

[Philclock]

07:55 PM on 07/06/2010

What about all the jerks who rule government, and throw our money down a rathole, keeping a fat commission for themselves along the way?

Oh,I forgot the "progressive" rules. Make money in private life, you're "greedy". Rip off taxpayers and redistribute, spend through the government monopoly, you're for "social justice" and "fairness", and "progressives" are entitled to a fat pension, tenured jobs and a commission off the top for their lobbyist of choice.

[antiplutocrat]

12:46 AM on 07/07/2010

The jerks who rule government are the corporations and financial institutions. If the American electorate can wrap our minds around that simple reality, we will have half a chance of saving our republic.

[Vlad Tepes]

01:20 AM on 07/07/2010

You know, the republic IS the corporations. Who do you think sits anonymously in the corporate boardrooms watching balance sheets and ensuring that profits are up to expectations?
The family members of Senators and other powerful families.

[Philclock]

11:55 AM on 07/07/2010

Disagree.

The jerks who rule government are the politicians, it's their choice to crony up with individuals, corporations, lobbyists, whomever.

If the public can figure that out, no matter which party's in control, the smaller the government, the lesser the cronying up, the fewer the lobbyists, etc.

[sunshine14]

07:55 PM on 07/06/2010

Pres Obama on new energy resources, repubs no no
Pres Obama out to create and support education funding etc repubs no no.
Repubs are out against all middle class, want to privatize big business, then they answer to no on at all, hire who they want, refuse who they want right and pay what they want in wages, take the job or starve?

[trulylastwords]

07:51 PM on 07/06/2010

good intention is hardly enough to lead to a just society.

if brandeis's story proves anything, it is that the anglo-american legal philosophy (if you can call it a philosophy) is hodgepodge mess of ruefully shallow fleeting ideas.

[Ann Shahan]

07:48 PM on 07/06/2010

Would that we had a way of testing every SCOTUS nominee on their ability and willingness to abide by precedent and not political bias.

[antiplutocrat]

12:55 AM on 07/07/2010

Precedent and political bias are not the only two alternatives. If we depended on the solutions of our earlier lives to answer the problems of new responsibilities and a changing life, we would still be riding skateboards instead of driving cars. Some realistic innovation is often a wise thing.

[sunshine14]

07:34 PM on 07/06/2010

Greed, it is said, God does not run, but he always catches you. Oil spill just the beginning?