Tournament: GB | Round: 2 | Opponent: GB | Judge: Shania Hunt
CP text- The United States Congress should do the plan.
Only Congress solves- courts cannot create change, and unpopular decisions go unenforced. Berenji ‘8
Berenji 8 (Shahin Berenji, magna cum laude, political science at USC, 08, “The US Supreme Court: A “Follower, Not a Leader” of Social Change”, http://www.lurj.org/article.php/vol3n1/supreme.xml)
Lacking either government or popular support, however, the Court's decision was not enforced, demonstrating the Court's inability to stymie change without majority consensus. As President Andrew Jackson jokingly stated, “Chief Justice John Marshall has made his decision…now let him enforce it…” (Burner 310). Consequently, without the protection of the Supreme Court's decision, the Indian population, including the Cherokees, Chickasaw, and Choctaw, were forced to migrate westward along the “trail of tears” by federal and/or state governments (Burner 310). This mass exodus of Indians caused an estimated ten thousand deaths which caused some to rename the “the trail of tears” (as it had been called), “the trail of death” (Burner 311). This example truly illustrates the Supreme Court's incapability of implementing decisions without societal support. More importantly, it shows how “words are not action,” meaning that force is necessary for the implementation of Court precedents (Rosenberg 18). The blatant demonstration of the Court's inability to forcefully implement change set up a judicial trend to support the tendencies of the majority. According to Robert Dahl, the Court adopted the position of keeping their decisions in line “with the policy views dominant among the lawmaking majorities 3 Congress and the President... “ (285). Thus, the decision-making powers of the Supreme Court evolved “to confer legitimacy on the fundamental policies of the successful coalition” (Dahl 294). Therefore, from Worcester vs. Georgia, the Supreme Court learned to coordinate its decisions in line with national opinion. As significant issues of social reform generally trigger opposition, the Court learned to align itself with the majority to facilitate the implementation and enforcement of its policies. Moreover, alignment with the majority inadvertently helped confer strength, respect, and legitimacy to the Supreme Court. According to Robert Dahl, “this legitimacy the Court jeopardizes if it flagrantly opposes the major policies of the dominant alliance” (293). However, since the Worcester vs. Georgia case, “such a course of action has been one in which the Court will not normally be tempted to engage” (Dahl 293). For instance, since 1935, seventy-five percent of the Court's decisions have been in support of the majority, indicative of the Court's passivity at opposing society (Rosenberg 13). More recently, sixty-five percent of the Court's decisions have been well supported by the majority of people within the United States, indicative of just how the Court's decisions have been decided in favor of popular or majority opinion (2000 Gallup Poll). In this way, then, the Court's decisions have become relatively predictable, unimportant, and insignificant since its precedents merely reinforce the ideas or opinions that are already prevalent within society. In addition, because the Court's decisions typically reflect the opinions of either the lawmaking or the national majority, it fails to challenge the beliefs or the principles of society. And so, the Court's inability to adjudicate decisions in opposition to the majority prevents it from protecting the rights of minorities and from becoming a true proponent of social change. While many people believe the Court's progressive decisions on civil right issues have been a general exception to this common pattern, those decisions were also fomented by national opinion.
Only the CP solves – Courts cannot create social change; they can only reinforce existing ideals. Berenji ‘8
Berenji 8 (Shahin Berenji, magna cum laude, political science at USC, 08, “The US Supreme Court: A “Follower, Not a Leader” of Social Change”, http://www.lurj.org/article.php/vol3n1/supreme.xml)
In the United States, the Supreme Court is the highest appellate court or legal institution that can define or interpret the rule of law. According to associate justice Felix Frankfurter, 1 “the Court breathes life, feeble or strong, into the inert pages of the Constitution and the statute books” (Dahl 280). Yet, to consider the Court strictly as a legal institution is to underestimate its significance since the Court must also decide on controversial matters of national policy. In this sense, the Court is a “political institution” that must solve societal disagreements that cannot be “found in or deduced from precedent, statute, and Constitution” (Dahl 281). Nevertheless, although it issues decisions on controversial and divisive matters, the Supreme Court cannot be said to catalyze social change for it utilizes societal and governmental opinion as the medium to interpret, apply, and implement public policy, thus “following, not leading” the United States. Because of its inability to initiate decisions, the Supreme Court has implemented landmark policies usually based upon societal legal challenges.
Congress never upholds Supreme Court decisions – only the counterplan solves- history proves. Slocum ‘7
Slocum 7 (Brian, Assistant Professor of Law, Florida Coastal School of Law. J.D. @ Harvard Law School, “Reforming U.S. Immigration Policy: Courts vs. The Political Branches: Immigration "Reform" and The Battle for the Future of Immigration Law,” 5 Geo. J.L. and Pub. Pol'y 509, Lexis)
Both a decision striking down aspects of the administrative adjudication process on due process grounds and a decision requiring habeas corpus review of discretionary determinations would be consistent with the plenary power doctrine. The government does not receive the benefit of the doctrine in cases involving due process or a claim that a statute violates a structural provision of the Constitution rather than an amendment to the Constitution.83 In addition, such decisions would be relatively modest because they would allow Congress to decide substantive immigration issues, and would thus not interfere with the foreign affairs concerns underlying the plenary power doctrine.84 Of course, the judiciary would not need to make bold constitutional decisions if the political branches enacted reforms that were designed to improve the immigration system.85 As other immigration commentators have argued, Congress should reform judicial review and provide for judicial review of all aspects of a final order of deportation.86 Unfortunately, if recent history is any indication, Congress’s efforts at reform of judicial review are not likely to involve attempts to improve the judicial review process for aliens. Indeed, recent legislative proposals have included provisions that would consolidate immigration appeals in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit or would provide for a screening process under which a single federal appellate judge could deny a petition for review.87
Only the counterplan solves - congress will override court decisions
Courts are bad at policymaking- they can’t cause social change, and any attempt to do so undermines legitimacy. Yoo ‘96
Yoo 96 (John Choon, professor in law and previous Dep. of Justice official, “Who Measures the Chancellor's Foot--The Inherent Remedial Authority of the Federal Courts”, Cal. L. Rev., 84, p. 1137-1138) GSK
Before I address the constitutional difficulties with the extensive use of far-reaching and invasive equitable remedies, I will examine the practical difficulties courts have experienced in managing institutions. Courts, some critics have argued, simply are functionally incapable of addressing "polycentric" problems that involve many different factors and relationships.101 Case studies have found that courts experience great difficulty in weighing policy alternatives and in calculating costs and benefits.IO3 Courts were shown to be unable to gather and to absorb the sort of sufficient, objective data required to make considered decisions.104 In terms of institutional competence, legislatures and bureaucracies appeared much better suited for these tasks. To put it differently, courts are structurally worse off than other arms of government at developing an intellectually coherent solution to social problems. While courts are expert at determining historical fact and causation, structural remedies call upon them to engage in very different activities. They must conduct social fact-finding and must discover and address the political, economic, and social factors that may have created an unconstitutional condition.1" Formulating the correct remedy requires courts to predict how the remedy will affect, and be affected by, the political, economic, and social context within which it is implemented. Courts are ill-suited for these tasks because they have little experience or facility for operating or administering complex institutions and social programs.106 Once a decree is decided upon, courts have proven ineffective at implementing their structural remedies. Courts possess only imperfect tools for communicating their decrees, and, in fact, they usually must rely upon the personnel of the institutional defendant to disseminate and to implement their orders.107 In perhaps the sharpest contrast with bureaucracies and legislatures, courts have few resources for guaranteeing compliance on the part of the defendants or for creating positive incentives to encourage adherence to judicial orders. Aside from the threat of a contempt order, courts must rely upon the moral persuasiveness of their judgments to acquire legitimacy. This highlights another deficiency in a court's ability to implement a remedy: its lack of resources for marshaling political and public support for its decrees, without which the court's efforts likely will fail.108 If courts inject themselves into the political arena, they risk undermining the impartiality and moral authority they need to persuade others to support their orders.
A weakened Supreme Court leads to massive rights violations- Korematsu proves—turns aff. Fontana ‘02
David Fontana, 2002student of law at Yale and Oxford Universities, 2002. The Connecticut Law Review, “A Case for the Twenty-First Century Constitutional Canon: Schneiderman v. United States,” p. lexis, rwg
Most of the "greatest hits" of American wartime constitutional law--Korematsu v. United States, n150 Hirabayashi v. United States, n151 and Ex parte McCardle n152 --all involved the Supreme Court caving to political pressure and approving restrictions on civil liberties, in a manner that made courts seem weak and unable to protect civil liberties.More recently, the case of Ex parte Quirin n153 has received substantial attention and has therefore been added to this greatest hits list of American wartime constitutional law, despite the fact that this case might be the most embarrassing example of courts caving to political pressure during wartime. n154 These cases are not usually presented in constitutional law casebooks, and when they do appear in casebooks they are not yoked together n155 with cases demonstrating courts standing up to political pressure and protecting civil liberties in a time of war.The above mentioned cases are painful reminders that, in times of war, courts often do not protect citizens against incursions on civil *66 liberties and act in ways that we often later regret. n156
