Lochner v. New York, decided in 1905, is one of the most criticized decisions in the U.S. Supreme Court’s history. It is widely believed that the Court, in striking down a worker-protection law under a “liberty of contract” theory, disregarded firm constitutional principles in favor of personal ideology, ultimately substituting its policy preferences for the judgments of elected officials. In his celebrated dissent, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. pointedly argued that “a Constitution is not intended to embody a particular [ideological] theory….It is made for people of fundamentally differing views.”
One hundred years later, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. invoked Justice Holmes’ memory during his confirmation hearings: “The obligation to strike down legislation is with the judicial branch….[A]s Justice Holmes said, it’s the gravest and most delicate duty that the Court performs….We have to consider cases that raise the question from time to time whether particular legislation is constitutional, and we have to limit ourselves in doing that to applying the law and not in any way substituting ourselves for the policy choices [Congress has] made.”
