Politics & Power Quote by Robert Bork

Bork is doing what he always did best: turning a procedural argument into a moral alarm. On the surface, he is defending a clean separation of powers - Congress writes laws, courts interpret the Constitution. But the real target is a particular late-20th-century anxiety: that elected branches might try to reverse conservative judicial wins not by amending the Constitution (hard, slow, democratic) but by legislating around interpretations (faster, messier, political).

The phrase "subversive of the function of judicial review" is loaded. "Subversive" implies not just a mistake but an attack on constitutional order, casting legislative reinterpretation as a kind of soft coup against the Court's role since Marbury. Bork also slips in a jab at what he saw as a one-way ratchet in constitutional politics: the Court, he suggests, will tolerate congressional pressure only when it pushes rights and doctrine "to the left". That last clause is less legal analysis than ideological cross-examination, positioning the judiciary as selectively principled - guardians of neutrality until progressive outcomes are on the table.

Context matters: Bork emerged as a symbol of the conservative legal movement in the era of Warren Court backlash, Roe, and fights over the administrative state. His larger project was to narrow judicial discretion through "original meaning". So this line isn’t a neutral defense of judicial review; it’s a defense of judicial finality on terms that limit democratic correction. The subtext is a warning to liberals: don’t try to treat constitutional meaning as negotiable through ordinary politics. If you want change, pay the amendment price.