An insulated judiciary raises the durability and value of legislative bargains.

Evidence

Social scientists and legal scholars alike have recognized that politicians can entrench their policies and protect their hold on power by delegating decisionmaking authority to a politically insulated judiciary. Thus, working within a public choice paradigm, William Landes and Richard Posner famously argued that an independent judiciary was a useful tool for legislators who wanted to deliver statutory benefits for interest groups in exchange for campaign contributions and political support. By enforcing the initial bargains against downstream legislatures with political incentives to renege, Landes and Posner argued, courts could increase the durability—and thus the value—of these interest group bargains. — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 334

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Judges act as temporally extended representatives of their appointing party.; Courts reason that binding successors harms the public by blocking adaptive response to change — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 132; Judicial independence advocates favor insulated selection and long tenure — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 589