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1 1 (March 29, 2022)

handle is hein.crs/govefmk0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional aResearch Service informing the I gislative d bate since 1914 j [1 -a :s The Modes of Constitutional Analysis: The Constitutional Avoidance Doctrine (Part 9) March 29, 2022 This Legal Sidebar Post is the last in a nine-part series that discusses certain methods or modes of analysis that the Supreme Court has used to interpret provisions of the Constitution. This ninth essay provides an overview of the Constitutional Avoidance Doctrine, which is a set of rules the Supreme Court has developed to guide federal court dispositions of cases that raise constitutional questions. Because the Constitutional Avoidance Doctrine informs how the Court is likely to resolve disputes involving the constitutionality of laws, understanding the Constitutional Avoidance Doctrine may assist Congress in its legislative activities. (Additional background on this topic is available in the Constitution of the United States ofAmerica, Analysis and Interpretation, CRS Report R45129, Modes of Constitutional Interpretation, and CRS Report R43706, The Doctrine of Constitutional Avoidance: A Legal Overview.) The fundamental principle of the Constitutional Avoidance Doctrine is that federal courts should interpret the Constitution only when it is a strict necessity. The reason for this is threefold: first, because the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, its interpretation has broad implications; second, an unelected Supreme Court exercising judicial review to countermand actions by an elected Congress or state legislatures is in tension with principles of democracy and majority-rule; and third, because the Supreme Court's authority depends, as a practical matter, on the Executive Branch enforcing and the people accepting its rulings, the Court must be careful not to squander public goodwill by issuing ill-considered opinions. In his concurring opinion in Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, Justice Louis Brandeis summarized the Constitutional Avoidance Doctrine as consisting of seven rules: Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB10719 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress -

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