However, in cases where the means selected do not violate or involve any constitutional prohibition, the courts are reluctant to become involved in approving or disapproving of the means selected by the legislature.
The second part makes no sense in light of the first. If judges are willing to look at "compelling government interest", then they're getting themselves into far more subjective waters than by simply looking at whether or not a particular means selected is appropriate for an agreed-upon end. In the latter case, they're making an evaluation based on very specific criteria - i.e., whether or not something is appropriate for a particular purpose; whereas in the former, they're just judging whether or not they think a particular state law is appropriate at all, by whatever criteria they feel like coming up with.
And the means selected do involve a constitutional prohibition when they involve Congress assuming new powers for itself.
When a legislature selects a means of accomplishing an objective, the means selected typically emerges from a process of negotiation and compromise of competing and often totally contradictory values and principles. The legislative selection of means nearly always reflects this political process.
And how is that the slightest bit different from any other type of vote Congress takes? An act of Congress doesn't all of the sudden become constitutional just because it involved a lot of compromise.
Courts have a difficult time formulating principled standards by which to review the quality of legislative compromises.
I just gave them some in my previous posts. Would you care to evaluate them?
When courts begin devising means, it's not always a pretty picture.
They don't have to "devise" anything. All they have to do is make a determination as to whether Congress has exceeded its authority.
The adjective "activist" loses its disparaging tone when the noun that it is describing is changed from judge to legislator.
"Activist" officials are those who stray beyond their proper spheres of authority in order to impose their way of doing things on society. It can apply to judges or legislators. As for whether or not it's disparaging, I guess that's in the eye of the beholder.
I just don't think that it is unreasonable to interpret the word "enforce" in the Fifteenth Amendment to mean something broader than merely the power to forbid a violation of the Fifteenth Amendment.
Umm, that is what "enforce" means, dude.
I believe that the power to "enforce" the Fifteenth Amendment can be reasonably interpreted to include the power to make the ends of the Fifteenth Amendment a reality.
In post 119, I said, "The 15th amendment...does not say that Congress shall have the power to make sure that everyone gets a fair shake at being able to vote," to which you replied, "You're absolutely right to completely ignore what the Fifteenth Amendment doesn't say." But now it doesn't sound like you're completely ignoring what it doesn't say. And in either case, what you're saying now would create a loophole big enough for Congress to drive a truck through, not just when you apply it to this amendment, but to any law that Congress is given the power to enforce. They can simply name piece of legislation as being necessary to a particular object, no matter how tangentially it's associated with it. In the 2000 election controversy in Florida, some idiot was complaining that he was intimidated by the presence of police outside the poling station. No, they weren't harassing anybody or anything like that. Hell, they probably had just gone to vote themselves, but this guy felt he had a right to be "intimidated" by their presence. There's just no end to the silliness that could result.
In the last analysis, we have no choice but to rely on checks and balances to keep each of the branches in line.
I never said we shouldn't; it certainly would make it much more difficult for the courts to keep the other branches of government in line if they weren't aligned against each other from the outset. But we can't rely exclusively on divisions between branches of government for upholding the law. One of those branches needs to be vested with the authority of applying the law, and needs to be expected to do its job, properly.
What’s more important is to understand the structural and institutional reasons (the lack of clear textual support for judicial review and the difficulty of formulating consistent, principled judicial standards for “judging” the propriety of inherently political decisions) that might account for the Supreme Court’s tendency to exercise a lot of self-restraint in this area.
Those aren't the reasons judges don't get involved. If you notice, the courts very seldom restrain Congress in any meaningful way (either as to "means" or to "ends"), but are plenty eager to push states around. They certainly don't seem to have any issue whatsoever with "'judging' the propriety of inherently political decisions" that are made in state capitals, despite the utter and complete lack of textual support and principled judicial standards for determining "compelling government interest". Which is strange when you consider that the Constitution places far greater restriction on Congress than on the states.
I didn't mean for you to have to take my word for the reasons courts have exercised self-restraint when it comes to reviewing the means selected by Congress. Consider this language from McCulloch v. Maryland (1819):
"Should Congress, in the execution of its powers, adopt measures which are prohibited by the constitution; or should Congress, under the pretext of executing its powers, pass laws for the accomplishment of objects not entrusted to the government; it would become the painful duty of this tribunal, should a case requiring such a decision come before it, to say that such an act was not the law of the land. But where the law is not prohibited, and is really calculated to effect any of the objects entrusted to the government, to undertake here to inquire into the degree of its necessity, would be to pass the line which circumscribes the judicial department, and to tread on legislative ground. This court disclaims all pretensions to such a power."
It's unclear to me why you feel that Congress lacked the power to suspend literacy tests in order to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment.
1) Is it because you are interpreting the word "enforce" so narrowly that it would not encompass the suspension of literacy tests?
2) Is it because you simply reject the factual determination by Congress that suspension of the literacy tests was "necessary" to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment?
3) Is it because you feel that suspension of the literacy tests raised federalism issues because it unduly intruded into areas (voting procedures) historically regulated for the most part by states?