The South Counterattacks

The Anti-Naacp Laws

Bibliographic Data

ID3267598
AuthorsWalter F Murphy (Princeton University, corresponding author)
Year1959
Volume12
Issue2
Pages371
Publication date1959-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Western Political Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0043-4078 • E-ISSN: 2325-8675
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/443977
OpenAlexW4254229861
LanguageEN
Citations received17

N RECENT YEARS the group basis of judicial activity has become more evident. Whether this has been due to heavier group pressures or whether there has simply been sharper recognition of what has always been going on, is difficult to determine.' Perhaps the current situation is partially the result of both factors. Certainly the dispute over national economic policy during the depression years, when the foes of the New Deal took their lost political cause to the judges, focused attention on judicial pressure groups. Organized labor profited by this example; and in the decade after 1937, when the liberalism of the Roosevelt coalition was in legislative eclipse, unions found their staunchest support in the marble palace across the street from the capitol building. As a concomitant of this economic battle public awareness of the immense policy potential of new judicial appointments increased, although aside from the famous Court packing plan of 1937 it is problematical whether partisan activity grew in the same proportion. There are a number of court weapons ready at hand for interest groups. The most obvious is to persuade an individual or a company to violate a law and force the government to bring a test prosecution. The amicus curiae brief2 is more oblique as well as less risky, though it normally depends on somebody else's starting the legal action. Where a plaintiff can be found a class action 3 for a declaratory judgment and/or an injunction can be begun, that is, a suit initiated by one person or a small group of persons on behalf of a large number of people similarly situated

Aside · Government (linguistics) · Judicial activism · Judicial restraint · Law and economics · Legislature · Plaintiff · Political science · Politics · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Legal and Constitutional Studies · Military and Defense Studies

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