Benchmark and the Informed Public
In the Fall of 1983, the newly-established Center for Judicial Studies published
the premier issue of Benchmark: A Bimonthly Report on the Constitution and the Courts.
James McClellan, President of the Center, was its Editor, and over the course of the next
seven years, he would pour his heart, mind, and soul – his love of the U.S. Constitution,
his keen intellect and extraordinary knowledge of all things legal, and his steadfast
commitment to the principles of federalism and limited government – into making it at
the time the leading legal journal challenging judicial activism and defending the original
understanding of the Constitution. In what follows, I describe the ends Jim sought to
achieve through his extraordinary editorial efforts, and the varied and often innovative
means he employed to achieve these ends.
Jim began the premier issue of Benchmark by declaring that “[w]hat the world
needs is a good independent journal of opinion that systematically monitors the bench
and bar, and holds the legal profession accountable for the consequences of its actions.”
It needs “a watchdog publication” that will call to the public’s attention the increasing
“‘judicialization’ of America,” the “explosion of law and litigation,” the “expanding
power and heightened activism of the Federal Judiciary,” and the anti-democratic
consequences of “judicial supremacy,” and Benchmark, he announced, was that
publication.
The judiciary had lost all sense of self-restraint and, therefore, needed to be
restrained by the Congress, but, he continued, “the success of any legislative effort to
limit the powers of the Judiciary or slow down the growth of litigation depends in large
1
James McClellan, “Editor’s Brief,” Benchmark: A Bimonthly Report on the Constitution
and the Courts, Premier Issue (Fall 1983), p. 1.
2
Ibid, pp. 1-2.
2
Convention