Jeffrey Stempel (UNLV) has published The Most Rational Branch: Guinn v. Legislature and the Judiciary’s Role as Helpful Arbiter of Conflict, 4 Nev. L.J. 518 (2004). Here is the Conclusion:

Rather than reflecting an out-of-control state Supreme Court, Guinn v. Legislature reflects a court sensitive to its mission and the greater needs of its larger constituency. If anything, the Guinn court could have said more, rather than less, about the occasional drawbacks of certain types of lawmaking. Although trumpeting the anti-tax supermajority position as “the will of the people” has a certain rhetorical force, the actual facts of lawmaking by initiative and legislation generally are considerably messier. In a real world of interest group politics and economic power, the Guinn v. Legislature approach better serves the public than the sanitized approach of eighth grade civics that Guinn’s critics invoke to attack the court. Rather than decrying Guinn, Nevadans should be thankful that the state Supreme Court is reflective, sophisticated, and courageous.

Forty years ago, the conservative legal scholar Alexander Bickel famously referred to the judiciary as the “least dangerous branch,” invoking the characterization made by Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers. Hamilton and Bickel, two authorities worth some deference, saw courts as less likely to abuse power than the lawmaking legislature or the armed executive.

In addition, courts are, by nature, the most reflective and rational branch of government. This is not to say that executives and legislators are not very smart, but only to say that the nature of their work is different. The executive and the legislature must work quickly and under substantial political constraints in effectuating public policy. By contrast, courts have the comparative luxury of taking time for sustained evaluation and reflection on a topic (even when presented with emergency litigation). Further, courts are less subject to the political pressures and economic pressures of the moment. As a result, the judicial branch normally can give more substantively rational and dispassionate analysis to certain questions. Although the public may not always respond favorably to the outcomes of the judiciary’s substantive rationality, we should all be thankful and a bit humble before attacking courts that render controversial decisions.