Or so opines Chris:
Out of about 7000 petitions for cert, the Court only hears argument for about 100 each term. By no account is that a substantial (hell, it?s barely a minimal) number. Part of me wants to say this is a terrible thing because what else do we have a Supreme Court for but to hear cases? If the Supreme Court?s JOB is to hear and decide cases, shouldn?t it be doing it by hearing and deciding as many cases as possible? There?s certainly an attractiveness to this line of thought?but I ultimately come down on the side that a Court that hears so few cases a year is less likely to be an ?activist? court and therefore, a more conservative one.
A court that doesn?t do much, almost tautologically, doesn?t have much to do. For those of us that like our whiskey and women warm, this is a great thing to see in a court. In much the same way that gridlock results in less gov?t regulation, a highly selective court simply has less opportunity to impose itself onto a (sometimes unwilling) populace. Rather than kill you with a thousand pinpricks by establishing its authority in as many places as possible, a Court is at its most conservative when it refuses to exercise its authority. ...
To conclude, I?ll draw a baseball analogy. The best umpires are the ones that, after the game, you barely knew they were there. The same holds true for courts.
It's a good point, and I especially like the baseball analogy, but don't forget that a certain amount of activity beating up on the 9th Circuit comes in handy.
