Rational basis review, in U.S. constitutional law, refers to the lowest of three levels of scrutiny applied by courts when considering constitutional questions, including due process or equal protection questions under the Fifth Amendment or Fourteenth Amendment. "Rational basis review" simply means that the enactment in question is "rationally related" to a "legitimate" governmental reason offered as its justification. Rational basis review is the lowest, default level of scrutiny that a court applies when engaging in judicial review in the United States. The higher levels of scrutiny are intermediate scrutiny and strict scrutiny. Rational basis review does not usually apply in situations where a suspect or quasi-suspect classification is involved, or a fundamental right is implicated.
In United States Supreme Court jurisprudence, the nature of the interest at issue determines the level of scrutiny applied by appellate courts. When courts engage in "rational basis review," only the most egregious enactments -- those not rationally related to a legitimate government interest -- are overturned.
Read more about Rational Basis Review: Overview, History, Applicability, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words rational, basis and/or review:
“Since the Greeks, Western man has believed that Being, all Being, is intelligible, that there is a reason for everything ... and that the cosmos is, finally, intelligible. The Oriental, on the other hand, has accepted his existence within a universe that would appear to be meaningless, to the rational Western mind, and has lived with this meaninglessness. Hence the artistic form that seems natural to the Oriental is one that is just as formless or formal, as irrational, as life itself.”
—William Barrett (b. 1913)
“It was the custom
For his rage against chaos
To abate on the way to church,
In regulations of his spirit.
How good life is, on the basis of propriety,
To be followed by a platter of capon!”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Americans have internalized the value that mothers of young children should be mothers first and foremost, and not paid workers. The result is that a substantial amount of confusion, ambivalence, guilt, and anxiety is experienced by working mothers. Our cultural expectations of mother and realities of female participation in the labor force are directly contradictory.”
—Ruth E. Zambrana, U.S. researcher, M. Hurst, and R.L. Hite. “The Working Mother in Contemporary Perspectives: A Review of Literature,” Pediatrics (December 1979)