Separation, Supremacy, and the Unconstitutional Rational Basis Test

Volume 66 Issue 2 Article 1 7-1-2021 Separation, Supremacy, and the Unconstitutional Rational Basis Test Joseph S. Diedrich Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/vlr Part of the Constitutional Law Commons Recommended Citation Joseph S. Diedrich, Separation, Supremacy, and the Unconstitutional Rational Basis Test, 66 Vill. L. Rev. 249 (2021). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/vlr/vol66/iss2/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Villanova Law Review by an authorized editor of Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law Digital Repository. VILLANOVA LAW REVIEW VOLUME 66 2021 NUMBER 2 Articles SEPARATION, SUPREMACY, AND THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL RATIONAL BASIS TEST JOSEPH S. DIEDRICH* ABSTRACT When using a judicial tool known as the rational basis test, courts uphold a federal or state statute as constitutional so long as the statute rationally relates to a legitimate government interest. In this Article, I contribute a new theory to a growing body of scholarship questioning the validity of the rational basis test. I argue that the test violates the structural separation of powers and the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Article III of the Constitution vests federal courts with the “judicial power.” This power entails applying law to decide particular disputes; interpreting the law in order to apply it; and, when faced with multiple conflicting sources of law, applying higher-order law and rendering lowerorder law void or unenforceable. On that last point, the Supremacy Clause provides that the Constitution prevails over contrary federal and state statutes. I argue that when they deploy the rational basis test in cases challenging statutes, courts abdicate part of their judicial power and duty. Instead of fully exercising the judicial power to ascertain the best, fairest, and correct interpretation of the constitutional provision at issue, they merely set a zone of deference, within which all rational interpretations reside. The abdicated judicial power is effectively transferred to Congress or the state legislature (as the case may be), which then exercises the remnant judicial power—much like how Chevron deference results in transfer of judicial power to the executive branch. When used to review a federal statute, this framework violates the separation of powers. And when used to review any statute, it subverts the Supremacy Clause’s established legal hierarchy by elevating the status of lower-order statutes and illegitimately demoting the Constitution. * Appellate Attorney, Husch Blackwell LLP, Madison, Wisconsin. J.D., University of Wisconsin, summa cum laude, Order of the Coif. Special thanks to Philip Hamburger, Jeffrey Jackson, Kirsten Atanasoff, Kevin LeRoy, Clark Neily, Alex Phillips, and Yue Zhang for their comments, critiques, and support. All opinions are mine alone. (249) 250 VILLANOVA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 66: p. 249 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I. THE RATIONAL BASIS TEST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . II. CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A. Separation of Powers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B. “Judicial Power” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C. Supremacy Clause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . III. CHEVRON DEFERENCE: THE ANALOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A. Challenging Administrative Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B. Chevron and the Zone of Deference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C. Constitutional Problems with Chevron Deference . . . . . . . . . . . IV. WHY THE RATIONAL BASIS TEST IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL . . . . . . A. Judicial Review of Statutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B. Rational Basis and the Zone of Deference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C. Constitutional Problems with Rational Basis Review of Federal Statutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D. Constitutional Problems with Rational Basis Review of State Statutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V. COUNTERARGUMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 255 261 261 264 271 273 274 276 279 286 286 288 290 299 301 308 2021] SEPARATION, SUPREMACY, RATIONAL BASIS 251 INTRODUCTION T HE Constitution is law, and “[i]t is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.”1 Not what the law rationally might be. And not what Congress or any state legislature says it is. As part of the New Deal-era reaction against Lochner v. New York2 and its ilk, the United States Supreme Court developed a now-familiar framework to review the constitutionality of many types of government action: the “rational basis test.” Under that test, if a federal or state statute rationally relates to a legitimate government interest, then a federal court (or a state court applying federal law) blesses it as consistent with the United States Constitution and applies it to resolve the case at hand. In this Article, I argue that the modern rational basis test—irrespective of the outcomes it produces—is unconstitutional. I am hardly the first person to say so. The Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy devoted an entire symposium to the proposition.3 Randy Barnett has argued that “a two-tier treatment of constitutional rights violates both the plain and original meaning of the Ninth Amendment,”4 which states that unenumerated rights should not be “den[ied] or disparage[d].”5 Clark Neily has argued 1. Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 177 (1803). 2. 198 U.S. 45 (1905). 3. See generally Evan Bernick, Subjecting the Rational Basis Test to Constitutional Scrutiny, 14 GEO. J.L. & PUB. POL’Y 347 (2016). 4. Randy E. Barnett, Scrutiny Land, 106 MICH. L. REV. 1479, 1496 (2008); see also Randy Barnett, Judicial Engagement Through the Lens of Lee Optical, 19 GEO. MASON L. REV. 845, 858 (2012) [hereinafter Barnett, Judicial Engagement]; Randy E. Barnett, Does the Constitution Protect Economic Liberty?, 35 HARV. J.L. & PUB. POL’Y 5, 12 (2012); Jeffrey D. Jackson, Putting Rationality Back into the Rational Basis Test: Saving Substantive Due Process and Redeeming the Promise of the Ninth Amendment, 45 U. RICH. L. REV. 491, 548 (2011); Clark Neily, No Such Thing: Litigating Under the Rational Basis Test, 1 N.Y.U (...truncated)