Joseph Kimble (WMU–Cooley Law School) has posted Rule-Of-Law Judge? That’s Code for Ideologically Conservative Judging (Michigan Lawyers Weekly, February 15 2023) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Judges often proclaim—typically during a political campaign—that they are a "rule-of-law judge." This commentary calls that description “a clichéd truism." Beyond that, though, what’s wrong with the description? First, it’s hopelessly simplistic. The second objection is that it signals a so-called textualist approach to judging. The commentary briefly discusses the deficiencies of textualism and explains why it has become the brand name for ideologically conservative judging.
