Unspoken Truths and Misaligned Interests: Political Parties and the Two Cultures of Civil Litigation

47 Pages Posted: 7 Aug 2013

See all articles by Stephen C. Yeazell

Stephen C. Yeazell

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - School of Law

Date Written: August 6, 2013

Abstract

During the last four decades the United States has witnessed first the emergence and then the disappearance of civil litigation as a topic of partisan debate in national politics. Following two centuries in which neither party thought the topic worth mention, in the last decades of the twentieth and first of the twenty-first century, both parties made it part of their agendas. Republican candidates and presidents denounced litigation as a blight; Democratic candidates and presidents embraced it as a panacea. This Essay traces the emergence of this issue, the apparent oddness of the two parties’ stances toward civil litigation, and the ways in which both parties chose to ignore salient characteristics of modern civil litigation — the unspoken truths of my title. Finally, I’ll tentatively suggest some reasons for the disappearance of this issue — at least temporarily — from the political scene.

Keywords: civil litigation, partisan debate on civil litigation, history of civil litigation

Suggested Citation

Yeazell, Stephen, Unspoken Truths and Misaligned Interests: Political Parties and the Two Cultures of Civil Litigation (August 6, 2013). 60 UCLA Law Review, 2013, UCLA School of Law Research Paper No. 13-25, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2306769

Stephen Yeazell (Contact Author)

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - School of Law ( email )

405 Hilgard Avenue
Box 951476 P.O. Box 951476
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1476
United States
310-825-8404 (Phone)
310-206-0158 (Fax)

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
160
Abstract Views
1,272
Rank
332,924
PlumX Metrics