What did Justice Louis Brandeis mean by his famous vision of states as laboratories of democracy?
About this video
The speaker explains Justice Brandeis's idea, from the Depression era, that states can act as laboratories of democracy. Because new problems rarely have one obvious answer, America's size and regional variety let states try different solutions, sometimes above a national baseline, and the best ideas can later be nationalized.
You'll be able to
- explain Brandeis's idea of states as laboratories of democracy.
- explain why variation between states can be appropriate, using an example like gun regulation.
- describe how a national baseline can still leave room for state experimentation.
Key words
- laboratories of democracy
- Brandeis's idea that states can test different solutions to problems, like experiments.
- variation
- Differences between states' laws and approaches.
- national baseline
- A minimum rule set by Congress or the Supreme Court that all states must meet.
- polarization
- When people divide into strongly opposed sides.
Transcript
It's so hard in America Circuit 2023 to find principles of constitutional law on which we all agree. I have to say, this one has stood the test of time. Justice Brandeis at the time was a progressive, but I don't think people think of this idea through the lens of progressivism. I think they think of this through the lens of American federalism. The point Brandeis was making a difficult time in American history, the Depression, was when you get new challenges, it's rare at the outset for governments to know exactly the right response. If we think of it in modern times, the challenges of opioids, data privacy, technology issues, of course, the pandemic, these are problems that just don't have one answer. Brandeis is making this very helpful point that we should think of our size, the size of America geographically, and our variation, our different cultures, the Mountain West,
the Midwest, the South, the coast, it's advantages, as opposed to disadvantages when it comes to putting together the best form of government. I really embrace the Brandeis point. Brandeis didn't assume every experiment with one solution. Quite often, three or four valuable insights emerge, and there's no one of them that really ought to control for the whole country. In fact, it might be quite dangerous to have a control for the whole country.
A corollary of Brandeis' insight is sometimes variation is appropriate because variation is due. Think of gun regulation. I doubt there's a single American that thinks the same rules for gun regulation ought to be applied in New York City as they apply in Wyoming. There has to be some room, and I think the US Supreme Court's Heller and Bruen decisions still leave plenty of room for different rules in Wyoming than exist in New York City.
You see this in a lot of areas. There's just nothing wrong with having a different sets of rules. Now, sometimes we might have a national baseline, fair enough, established by Congress or established by the US Supreme Court. But that baseline can still leave for plenty of room for experimentation above it. That seems to me quite healthy. If I ask myself one reason for polarization now, it might be that we sometimes have the, I guess it's an American instinct to be a little impatient, and really care about something when we want it to be the rule for the whole country. I appreciate the point. I'm as impatient as anybody, but it's sometimes best for all to allow various approaches. Be patient about letting one winning insight rise to the top, and if it does, let's nationalize it. But otherwise, let the trial and error continue to unfold,
hopefully, with few errors and lots of benefits.
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