Courts Vs. Obama

The single judge in Texas who has suspended President Obama’s immigration policy efforts is one example of the kind of judicial roadblock that has impeded Obama to a degree not seen since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in office, writes Bloomberg writer Noah Feldman. From health care to environmental protection and Internet regulation, “Why,” he asks, “ has the judiciary taken such a big role in opposing the president’s efforts to make policy?” Feldman’s theory is that it began when the Court awarded George W. Bush the presidency in 2000. Since then, he writes, “the conservative wing of the judiciary has been experimenting with activism – and has found that the court’s legitimacy is unaffected and that there is no pushback as there was under Roosevelt.”