⇒ Alexander Hamilton: “the interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts”
⇒ The Courts power to declare laws unconstitutional does seem to give it a lot of power, but the Court lacks the monetary power (e.g. over taxes) or force (such as the use of the military) to get what it wants
⇒ Woodrow Wilson believed that Courts were engaged in the neutral discovery of legal principles, and lacked the policy-making powers and discretion exercised by Congress and the bureaucracy
⇒ Wilson’s beliefs are, today, seen as an oversimplification of reality (although it is generally believed there is a distinction between law and politics)
⇒ However, to some extent the Court does make policy through its constitutional boundary setting
⇒ Dahl: “[t]o consider the Supreme Court of the United States strictly as a legal institution is to underestimate its significance in the American political system. For it is also a political institution, an institution, that is to say, for arriving at decisions on controversial questions of national policy.”