“By blaming you, it takes the blame off themselves for wasting their own time and sets up a future of voluntarily giving up their personal responsibility. They know if they say, ‘I wasted my own time.’ the correct follow-up is to go do something productive, but if it’s ‘You wasted my time.’ the natural follow-up is, ‘Maybe this cat video over here will be more responsible with my time.’”
Vi Hart
So call it “grue”. What difference does it make?
Well, then, the law is an ass.
Can anyone give an example of something for which a rational basis cannot be concocted?
I can hear the crinkly old pages of several law school texts being opened.
If I’m reading this thread correctly, it’s probably difficult-to-impossible. “Rational basis” apparently gives a wide enough latitude that no fig leaf is too implausible to protect a law from being overturned as capricious and arbitrary.
If Post 51 above is accurate, it would appear that even if the enacting body places right in the text that it’s capricious and arbitrary, it could be defended with a “rational basis” argument thought up well after the fact.
You’re not the first to make this observation.
I would say in this case that society changes over time, and the law is seldom at the forefront of change. As a written code, we’d expect the law to change in response to society’s changes, rather than change first to compel society’s changes.
After all, the law comes from the people, via their elected representatives - right? The steps to change should therefore be the people, then the law.
Sure. A law requiring parking meters to be paid a double fee when used by a left-handed person.
Or did you want a real-life example?
Traditional left-hander laws reflect a unique social difficulty with left-handed drivers that is not present with right-handed drivers — namely, the undeniable and distinct tendency of left-handers to die, on average, nine years sooner than their right-handed counterparts … The resultant loss of city parking revenue would pose a burden on society.”
That’s perfectly rational. Southpaws are dangerous, reprehensible bastards one and all - and I should know.
I know - a law that requires parking meters to be paid a double fee when used by a gay couple who can’t have children, but only a single fee by a hetero couple who can’t have children.
Wait, no, not quite, but I’ve almost got it.
The former Amendment II to te Constitution of the State of Colorado. (Vide Romer v. Evans.)
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Rational basis: There is something called the presumption of constitutionality. What this means, in simple, is that the court does not automatically examine every statute cited before it, e.g., the requirement to have had your vehicle inspected for a list of common safety issues within the past 12 months, to determine if the legislature had the power to enact such a law under tje relevant constitution(s). Rather, it gives deference to the legislature as a coordinate branch of government to have enacted laws that are constitutionally permissible.
If you claim that a given law is unconstitutional, the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that claim to the satisfaction of the court. This rebuts the presumption, and failing such a challenge and proof, the presumption stands.
In the absence of something triggering intermediate or strict scrutiny, the courts will therefore look for a rationale that the legislature could have used to determine that the statute in question deserved to be enacted. Ut need not be stated in the legislative findings or in debate on the law; what matters is that there is some possible legally sound reason why the legislature might have enacted it. U.e., the legislature had, or could have had, a rational basis for passing the law.
When, however, the law works a discriminatory wrong against some definable group, which need not be a traditional suspect classification, e.g., gays, Mormons, Japanese-Americans, women past childbearing age, etc., then the courts look to see if the legislature first articulated a rational basis for passing the law, and second showed how the need for the law supersedes the wrong done the group. This is rational basis with bite, as I understand it.
Wow, these people are going to lose their court case so hard…
Except for gays, classifications burdening any of those groups would get heightened scrutiny. Alienage and the exercise of a fundamental right (religion in this case) classifications trigger strict scrutiny. Gender classifications get intermediate scrutiny. Classifications based on sexual orientation are sui generis in this regard. We can’t really articulate what the rational basis with bite test is because SCOTUS hasn’t told us yet; in Romer, Kennedy purported to be applying ordinary rational basis analysis.
[QUOTE=Buck Godot]
Can anyone give an example of something for which a rational basis cannot be concocted?
[/QUOTE]
A zoning ordinance prohibiting group homes for the mentally retarded.
Typically, under rational basis analysis, one cannot propose alternate, more effective methods of reaching the stated goal as a path towards invalidating the the method the state has chosen.
In this case, however, the path directly contradicts the stated goal: since left-handers die sooner, and the stated goal is to increase revenue… then the city should raise the parking meter fees for right-handed people.
Ah, but the stated goal is not to maximize revenue, but merely to increase it, which a fee-doubling for left-handed users would indeed accomplish.
Stop reading things into the law which aren’t there.
or maybe just institute a $12 per use Internet Pedantry fee.
Should “fee” be capitalized as well?
cha-ching
The guy was dealt a pretty crappy hand trying to defend the constitutionality of DOMA is like trying to prove the constitutionality of a poll tax. But if someone paid you $2 million dollars, you might take the job too.