Also known as: rational-basis review · rational basis reviews · rational basis test · rational review
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A standard of judicial review under which a law or classification is upheld if it is rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest. Courts applying this standard defer heavily to legislative judgments and tolerate underinclusive or overinclusive measures so long as any conceivable set of facts supports the connection to a proper purpose.
Roger Ramirez, a 49-year-old police officer in peak physical condition, challenges a city ordinance requiring retirement at age 50. The city defends the rule as a means to maintain a capable force. The court upholds the ordinance because the age limit bears a rational relationship to the legitimate goal of ensuring officer fitness.
Reliance Insurance seeks to hire engineers from several majority-Muslim countries for a government contract. An executive order bars their entry on national-security grounds. The company sues, citing statements suggesting religious animus. The court sustains the order because its stated security objective is plausibly advanced by the restriction.
Ruby Rivera is prosecuted under a federal statute for possessing a firearm near a school. She argues the law exceeds Congress's commerce power. The court rejects mere rational basis review as the governing standard and holds that the statute exceeds Congress's authority.
In March 1992, Alfonso Lopez, Jr., a twelfth-grade student at Edison High School in San Antonio, Texas, arrived at school carrying a concealed .38-caliber handgun and five bullets. Acting on an anonymous tip, school authorities confronted Lopez, who admitted possessing the weapon. Local police arrested him and charged him under Texas law with firearm possession on school premises. The following day, state charges were dismissed after federal agents charged Lopez with violating the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990. A federal grand jury indicted him on one count of knowing possession of a firearm at a school zone. Lopez moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that the statute exceeded Congress's power to legislate control over public schools. The district court denied the motion, concluding that the statute was a constitutional exercise of Congress's power to regulate activities affecting commerce because the business of schools affects interstate commerce. After a bench trial, the court found Lopez guilty and sentenced him to six months' imprisonment and two years of supervised release. Lopez appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which reversed the conviction, holding that the statute was beyond Congress's power under the Commerce Clause. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the case.
View caseRiley Rivera, a state employee with a disability, sues under Title I of the ADA after being denied a promotion. The state claims sovereign immunity. The court holds that Congress lacked power to abrogate immunity because age and disability classifications receive rational basis review and the remedy was not congruent and proportional to any pattern of unconstitutional conduct.
Patricia Garrett, a registered nurse, served as Director of Nursing for OB/Gyn/Neonatal Services at the University of Alabama in Birmingham Hospital. In 1994 she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a lumpectomy, radiation treatment, and chemotherapy that required substantial leave from work. Upon returning in July 1995, her supervisor informed her that she would have to relinquish the director position, leading Garrett to apply for and accept a transfer to a lower-paying nurse manager role. Milton Ash worked as a security officer for the Alabama Department of Youth Services. At the outset of his employment, Ash notified the department of his chronic asthma and, on his doctor's recommendation, requested modifications to minimize exposure to carbon monoxide and cigarette smoke. After later being diagnosed with sleep apnea, Ash sought reassignment to daytime shifts pursuant to medical advice. The department denied all requested accommodations. Shortly after Ash filed a discrimination claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, his performance evaluations declined below previous levels. Garrett and Ash filed separate lawsuits in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, each seeking money damages under Title I of the ADA against their state employers. The state defendants moved for summary judgment, asserting that the ADA exceeds Congress's authority to abrogate Eleventh Amendment immunity. In a single opinion, the district court granted the motions and dismissed both cases. The cases were consolidated on appeal to the Eleventh Circuit, which reversed based on its prior decision in Kimel v. State Board of Regents holding that the ADA validly abrogates state immunity. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a split among the courts of appeals regarding whether individuals may sue states for money damages in federal court under the ADA.
View caseRoland Rhodes owns waterfront property that the city condemns and transfers to a private developer for a mixed-use project. Rhodes claims the taking lacks a public use. The court upholds the condemnation because economic development is a legitimate public purpose rationally furthered by the city's plan.
In the late 1990s the city of New London, Connecticut, confronted severe economic decline after the 1996 closure of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, which had employed more than 1,500 people. The city's unemployment rate stood nearly double the state average and its population had dropped below 24,000 residents from a 1970 high of 30,000. State and local officials therefore designated the Fort Trumbull peninsula for targeted economic revitalization. In 1998 the New London Development Corporation, a private nonprofit entity, was reactivated to prepare a redevelopment plan covering roughly 90 acres. The plan divided the area into seven parcels designated for a waterfront conference hotel and marinas, retail and entertainment space, research and office facilities, parking and park support, residential units, a Coast Guard museum, and additional office and retail uses. The city council formally approved the plan in January 2000 and authorized the NLDC to acquire needed parcels by purchase or, if necessary, by eminent domain. Petitioners Susette Kelo, Wilhelmina Dery, and seven other owners held fifteen properties within parcels 3 and 4A; ten of those parcels were occupied by the owners or their family members and none was alleged to be blighted. After negotiations with the NLDC failed, the corporation initiated condemnation proceedings against the remaining properties in November 2000. In December 2000 the petitioners filed suit in New London Superior Court asserting that the proposed takings violated the public-use limitation of the Fifth Amendment. Following a seven-day bench trial the Superior Court entered a permanent restraining order barring condemnation of the parcel 4A properties but denied relief as to the parcel 3 properties. Both sides appealed to the Connecticut Supreme Court, which upheld the validity of all challenged takings. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the federal constitutional question.
View caseRicardo Rojas publishes works whose copyrights are about to expire. Congress extends the term by twenty years. Rojas challenges the extension as exceeding Congress's power. The court sustains the statute because extending copyright terms is rationally related to the legitimate interest in encouraging creation and dissemination of works.
In 1998 Congress enacted the Copyright Term Extension Act, which extended the duration of all federal copyrights by twenty years. For works created by identified natural persons the new term runs from creation until seventy years after the author's death. For anonymous works, pseudonymous works, and works made for hire the term is ninety-five years from publication or one hundred twenty years from creation, whichever expires first. The statute applied these extended terms both to copyrights already in existence and to works created after its effective date. Petitioners are individuals and businesses whose products or services build on copyrighted works that have gone into the public domain. They filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia seeking a declaration that the extension of existing copyrights exceeded Congress's power under the Copyright Clause and violated the First Amendment. On cross-motions for judgment on the pleadings the district court entered judgment for the Attorney General. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed. A majority of the panel upheld the statute against both challenges, while Judge Sentelle dissented in part on the Copyright Clause issue. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to address whether the extension of existing copyrights exceeds Congress's power under the Copyright Clause and whether the extension violates the First Amendment.
View caseRational basis review applies to classifications that are not suspect or quasi-suspect and to laws that do not burden fundamental rights. Age distinctions, most economic regulations, and immigration measures in the foreign-affairs context receive this deferential standard.
Courts permit substantial underinclusiveness and overinclusiveness under rational basis review. A law need only be rationally related to a legitimate purpose. It may advance that purpose one step at a time even if it leaves some problems unaddressed.
When the stated purpose is legitimate and the measure is rationally related to it, courts generally uphold the law even if extrinsic statements suggest an additional improper motive. This principle appears in both age-classification and immigration cases.
…Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States , 379 U. S., at 258-259. Thus, under commerce, as under due process, adoption of rational basis review expressed the recognition that the Court had no sustainable basis for subjecting economic regulation as such to judicial policy judgments, and for the past half century the Court has no…