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In U.S. constitutional law, rational basis review is the normal
standard of review In law, the standard of review is the amount of deference given by one court (or some other appellate tribunal) in reviewing a decision of a lower court or tribunal. A low standard of review means that the decision under review will be varied or ov ...
that courts apply when considering constitutional questions, including
due process Due process of law is application by state of all legal rules and principles pertaining to the case so all legal rights that are owed to the person are respected. Due process balances the power of law of the land and protects the individual pers ...
or
equal protection The Equal Protection Clause is part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides "''nor shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal ...
questions under the Fifth Amendment or Fourteenth Amendment. Courts applying rational basis review seek to determine whether a law is "rationally related" to a "legitimate" government interest, whether real or hypothetical."Rational Basis Test"
Cornell University Law School. Accessed May 13, 2022.
The higher levels of scrutiny are intermediate scrutiny and
strict scrutiny In U.S. constitutional law, when a law infringes upon a fundamental constitutional right, the court may apply the strict scrutiny standard. Strict scrutiny holds the challenged law as presumptively invalid unless the government can demonstrate th ...
. Heightened scrutiny is applied where a suspect or quasi-suspect classification is involved, or a
fundamental right Fundamental rights are a group of rights that have been recognized by a high degree of protection from encroachment. These rights are specifically identified in a constitution, or have been found under due process of law. The United Nations' Sustai ...
is implicated. In
U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
jurisprudence, the nature of the interest at issue determines the level of scrutiny applied by appellate courts. When courts engage in rational basis review, only the most egregious enactments, those not rationally related to a legitimate government interest, are overturned. Rational basis review tests whether the government's actions are "rationally related" to a "legitimate" government interest. The Supreme Court has never set forth standards for determining what constitutes a legitimate government interest. Under rational basis review, it is "entirely irrelevant" what end the government is actually seeking and statutes can be based on "rational speculation unsupported by evidence or empirical data". Rather, if the court can merely hypothesize a "legitimate" interest served by the challenged action, it will withstand rational basis review. Judges following the Supreme Court's instructions understand themselves to be "obligated to seek out other conceivable reasons for validating" challenged laws if the government is unable to justify its own policies.


History

The concept of rational basis review can be traced to an influential 1893 article, "The Origin and Scope of American Constitutional Law", by Harvard law professor
James Bradley Thayer James Bradley Thayer (January 15, 1831 – February 14, 1902) was an American legal theorist and educator. Life Born at Haverhill, Massachusetts, he graduated from Harvard College in 1852, where he established the overcoat fund for needy under ...
. Thayer argued that statutes should be invalidated only if their unconstitutionality is "so clear that it is not open to rational question". Justice
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (March 8, 1841 – March 6, 1935) was an American jurist and legal scholar who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932.Holmes was Acting Chief Justice of the Un ...
, a student of Thayer's, articulated a version of what would become rational basis review in his canonical dissent in ''
Lochner v. New York ''Lochner v. New York'', 198 U.S. 45 (1905), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that a New York state law setting maximum working hours for bakers violated the bakers' right to freedom of contract under t ...
'', arguing that
the word 'liberty', in the 14th Amendment, is perverted when it is held to prevent the natural outcome of a dominant opinion, unless it can be said that a rational and fair man necessarily would admit that the statute proposed would infringe fundamental principles as they have been understood by the traditions of our people and our law.
However, the court's extensive application of economic substantive due process during the years following Lochner meant that Holmes' proposed doctrine of judicial deference to state interest was not immediately adopted. It was not until ''
Nebbia v. New York ''Nebbia v. New York'', 291 U.S. 502 (1934), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States decided that New York State could regulate the price of milk for dairy farmers, dealers, and retailers. History New York State dairy farmers ...
'' that the Court began to formally apply rational basis review, when it stated that "a State is free to adopt whatever economic policy may reasonably be deemed to promote public welfare, and to enforce that policy by legislation adapted to its purpose". In '' United States v. Carolene Products Co.'' the Court in Footnote Four left open the possibility that laws that seem to be within "a specific prohibition of the Constitution", which restrict the political process, or which burden "
discrete and insular minorities ''United States v. Carolene Products Company'', 304 U.S. 144 (1938), was a case of the United States Supreme Court that upheld the federal government's power to prohibit filled milk from being shipped in interstate commerce. In his majority opini ...
" might receive more exacting review. Today, such laws receive
strict scrutiny In U.S. constitutional law, when a law infringes upon a fundamental constitutional right, the court may apply the strict scrutiny standard. Strict scrutiny holds the challenged law as presumptively invalid unless the government can demonstrate th ...
, whereas laws implicating
unenumerated rights Unenumerated rights are legal rights inferred from other rights that are implied by existing laws, such as in written constitutions, but are not themselves expressly coded or "enumerated" within the explicit writ of the law. Alternative terminolo ...
that the Supreme Court has not recognized as
fundamental Fundamental may refer to: * Foundation of reality * Fundamental frequency, as in music or phonetics, often referred to as simply a "fundamental" * Fundamentalism, the belief in, and usually the strict adherence to, the simple or "fundamental" idea ...
receive rational basis review. Under the rational review basis, laws are presumed to be constitutional in deference to legislators.


Applicability

In modern constitutional law, the rational basis test is applied to constitutional challenges of both
federal law Federal law is the body of law created by the federal government of a country. A federal government is formed when a group of political units, such as states or provinces join in a federation, delegating their individual sovereignty and many po ...
and
state law State law refers to the law of a federated state, as distinguished from the law of the federation of which it is a part. It is used when the constituent components of a federation are themselves called states. Federations made up of provinces, cant ...
(via the Fourteenth Amendment). This test also applies to both
legislative A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers of government. Laws enacted by legislatures are usually known ...
and
executive Executive ( exe., exec., execu.) may refer to: Role or title * Executive, a senior management role in an organization ** Chief executive officer (CEO), one of the highest-ranking corporate officers (executives) or administrators ** Executive dir ...
action, whether those actions be of a substantive or procedural nature. The rational basis test prohibits the government from imposing restrictions on liberty that are irrational or arbitrary, or drawing distinctions between persons in a manner that serves no constitutionally legitimate end. While a law "enacted for broad and ambitious purposes often can be explained by reference to legitimate public policies which justify the incidental disadvantages they impose on certain persons", it must nevertheless, at least, bear "a rational relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose". To understand the concept of rational basis review, it is easier to understand what it is not. Rational basis review is ''not'' a genuine effort to determine the legislature's actual reasons for enacting a statute, nor to inquire into whether a statute does in fact further a legitimate end of government. A court applying rational basis review will virtually always uphold a challenged law unless every conceivable justification for it is a grossly illogical non sequitur. In 2008, Justice
John Paul Stevens John Paul Stevens (April 20, 1920 – July 16, 2019) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1975 to 2010. At the time of his retirement, he was the second-oldes ...
reaffirmed the lenient nature of rational basis review in a
concurring opinion In law, a concurring opinion is in certain legal systems a written opinion by one or more judges of a court which agrees with the decision made by the majority of the court, but states different (or additional) reasons as the basis for their deci ...
: " I recall my esteemed former colleague,
Thurgood Marshall Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 until 1991. He was the Supreme Court's first African-A ...
, remarking on numerous occasions: 'The Constitution does not prohibit legislatures from enacting stupid laws.
New York State Bd. of Elections v. Lopez Torres
', 552 U.S. 196, 209 (2008) (Stevens, J., concurring).


See also

*
Due process Due process of law is application by state of all legal rules and principles pertaining to the case so all legal rights that are owed to the person are respected. Due process balances the power of law of the land and protects the individual pers ...
*
Equal Protection Clause The Equal Protection Clause is part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides "''nor shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal ...
*
John Marshall John Marshall (September 24, 1755July 6, 1835) was an American politician and lawyer who served as the fourth Chief Justice of the United States from 1801 until his death in 1835. He remains the longest-serving chief justice and fourth-longes ...
* ''
Marbury v. Madison ''Marbury v. Madison'', 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803), was a List of landmark court decisions in the United States, landmark Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Supreme Court case that established the principle of Judicial review in the Uni ...
'' * ''
Plyler v. Doe ''Plyler v. Doe'', 457 U.S. 202 (1982), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States struck down both a state statute denying funding for education of undocumented immigrant children in the United States and an independent school distr ...
'' * ''
Romer v. Evans ''Romer v. Evans'', 517 U.S. 620 (1996), is a landmark United States Supreme Court case dealing with sexual orientation and state laws.. It was the first Supreme Court case to address gay rights since ''Bowers v. Hardwick'' (1986),. when the C ...
''


References

{{US Constitution Civil rights and liberties Legal history of the United States United States constitutional law