Ordinary and Enhanced Rational Basis Review in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court: A Preliminary Investigation
This Article examines the
cases in which the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has
applied enhanced rational basis scrutiny, as well as those cases in
which the court has limited the circumstances in which such
scrutiny is available. The goal is descriptive, to trace the origins of
the Goodridge court's analytical framework in an effort to determine
whether the decision should be regarded as an eccentric application
of rational basis review or, as seems to be the case, merely the latest
in a long line of cases in which the court has examined regulation
more critically within the context of what we today call rational
basis scrutiny.
