Court to Review Rights Ruling

Some editorial writers have denounced as a kind of impropriety the announced willingness of a majority of the Supreme Court to reconsider the 1976 Runyon vs. McCrary decision. That decision was one of a series, begun by a 1968 Warren court decision (Jones vs. Alfred H. Mayer Co.) that vastly expanded federal power over private persons in civil rights matters. So doing, the Jones decision specifically overruled a 1906 decision and departed from a nearly century-old common understanding of the scope of civil rights legislation that was enacted in the aftermath of the Civil War.

Some of the judges who participated in the 1976 decision in Runyon vs. McCrary thought the recent precedents relied on were wrong, but they went along anyway. So, it was a question of which precedents to honor, those of long standing or those more recently promulgated.

In extending federal power over the citizen the Warren court and its successors have overruled many precedents, to the applause of liberal commentators.

Those who now object to reconsideration of the 1976 decision seemingly contend for a kind of ratchet effect whereby, regardless of previous judicial excesses, federal power could only be raised to an even higher notch, never lowered. But that notion of judicial administration is an expression of politics, not principle, and should be recognized as such.

RICHARD A. PERKINS

Los Angeles