Analysis

Fair, According to What?

After a hurricane, restoring power requires choosing whose needs come first, exposing the competing priorities that also divide political debate. Each choice deserves examination for the principle it advances, the costs it imposes, and the authority used to enforce it.

Daniel R. Neuhaus

Daniel R. Neuhaus

— 22 min read
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Fair, According to What?

After a hurricane, the question of fairness becomes a decision about who receives assistance first and whose need must wait.[1] Every restoration sequence gives practical effect to a judgment about which claim deserves priority when help cannot reach everyone at once.[2]

A citywide power outage places families with infants in homes without air conditioning, leaves elderly residents dependent on medical equipment as backup batteries run down, and threatens the hospitals responsible for sustaining lives. Small businesses face mounting losses while they remain closed, and the utility must decide where to send limited crews through damaged infrastructure before it can answer every demand.[3] Choosing which neighborhood receives power first necessarily gives one claim precedence over another, however pressing both claims may be.[4]

After Hurricane Beryl, KPRC 2 reported CenterPoint Energy’s stated restoration priorities, beginning with facilities “vital to safety, health and welfare,” including hospitals, water treatment plants, and public service facilities. The company said crews would then repair electrical facilities that returned power to the largest number of people first.[5] A 2021 KPRC 2 report described the same sequence, drawing on a company spokesperson and its website, beginning with facilities essential to community health and welfare and proceeding to lines that restored the most customers in the least time. Service drops and lines serving individual homes came last in the sequence, after repairs benefiting larger groups of customers.[6]

That rule has a sound justification because it protects essential public infrastructure and directs scarce crews toward repairs that benefit the greatest number.[7] A family served by a line reaching fewer customers, living in a neighborhood with more complex damage, or facing an urgent need outside the prescribed sequence may nevertheless regard its place in that order as unjust.[8] The dispute arises even when everyone recognizes the emergency, because agreement about the problem leaves unresolved which claim should govern the response.[9]

Political argument becomes more exact when an appeal to fairness carries an obligation to identify and defend the priority it would establish.[10] That obligation extends to the authority under which the choice would be enforced and the people who would bear its consequences.[11] Judgment, lawful conduct, and policy results remain subject to scrutiny,[12] while identifying the competing principles gives that scrutiny a firmer basis before disagreement becomes an accusation about character.[13]

I. The Priority Hidden Inside Fairness

People bring to politics an understanding of fairness formed through their background and experience, often before they encounter the particular dispute before them.[14] A competing principle can therefore seem to reject fairness itself, even when it expresses a different judgment about whose claim should receive priority.[15]

Recognizing that distinction leaves each person responsible for the position advanced and the consequences that follow from giving it effect.[16] Good intentions can produce harmful policies, and an appeal to fairness can furnish a convenient justification for exceeding lawful authority.[17] Those possibilities warrant scrutiny alongside restraint in judging another person's character,[18] with attention to the principle asserted, the authority invoked, and the costs imposed on those affected.[19]

Each claim should be understood on its own terms before its merits are judged, with its persuasiveness determined by the reasons supporting it.[20] A position may protect one part of justice while neglecting another, particularly when its advocates treat their preferred principle as sufficient to resolve the entire dispute.[21] Identifying that priority gives opponents something definite to examine and answer, allowing criticism to address the argument at the point where it succeeds or fails.[22]

II. Aristotle and the Problem of Partial Justice

Aristotle examined this problem long before the American founding, tracing political conflict to competing claims about what equality and inequality require.[23] In Book III of Politics, democrats reason from equal freedom to equal political power, while oligarchs reason from unequal wealth to unequal political power.[24] Each begins with a partial truth and extends it beyond what it can establish, treating a limited principle as a complete account of justice.[25]

In Benjamin Jowett's translation, the parties “agree about the equality of the things, but dispute about the equality of the persons,” a difficulty aggravated by their tendency to judge questions involving their own interests poorly.[26] The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains the distributive principle in similar terms, under which equal persons receive equal shares and unequal persons receive unequal shares, leaving the dispute to turn on the relevant measure of equality.[27]

The hurricane presents the same difficulty in an immediate form, because allocating assistance requires a choice about the principle that determines who should receive it first.[28] Each competing account may preserve part of justice while producing harmful consequences when its advocates give that part controlling weight over every other claim.[29]

Aristotle's analysis supplies a reason to identify the aspect of justice an opposing position protects, including when that position remains incomplete or would become dangerous if given legal force.[30] Once that premise is identified, criticism can address whether it justifies the priority claimed and whether it can support the consequences its advocates would attach to it.[31]

III. When the Problem Is Shared

As the restoration dispute illustrates, people can agree that a problem requires a remedy while disagreeing sharply about what that remedy should accomplish first.[32] Calling the proposed response fair leaves that disagreement unresolved until its advocates explain which injury or interest deserves precedence and why.[33]

Consider a selective public school that has fewer available seats than the number of qualified applicants who wish to attend.[34] An admissions rule based on the highest scores gives priority to achievement and the proposition that demonstrated merit deserves a corresponding reward.[35] A lottery among qualified applicants gives each child an equal chance after the required threshold has been met, making eligibility the condition for equal treatment.[36] Preference for disadvantaged students from underrepresented schools directs opportunity toward children whose prior circumstances have afforded them less of it.[37] Neighborhood access protects the expectations of families who chose their homes, paid local taxes, and organized their lives around the school.[38] Each rule answers the same shortage through a different priority, and the school must decide which claim controls when those claims compete for the same seat.[39]

Public safety presents a similar choice about whose experience should govern the response to conditions within a neighborhood suffering from crime.[40] Law-abiding residents may begin with their ability to walk to a store, raise children, and keep businesses open without fear, which directs attention toward order, enforcement, deterrence, and faster police response. Others may begin with residents' experience of rough enforcement, failing schools, addiction, joblessness, and years of disorder, which directs attention toward treatment, social repair, and restraint in policing.[41] Motive may enter the dispute, although the disagreement often begins with the priority assigned to victims of disorder and to those harmed by state overreach or social neglect.[42]

Student-debt forgiveness places competing claims before the government in much the same way, with relief for borrowers carrying consequences for those outside the proposed remedy.[43] The borrower seeks release from an obligation capable of shaping financial and personal decisions for decades after the education has ended.[44] Those who repaid their loans, borrowed less, worked through school, chose a less expensive education, or declined to attend may object to assuming a burden they took steps to avoid.[45] Describing the disagreement through mercy or cruelty leaves unanswered the question of which injury the law should recognize first and whose claim it should defer.[46]

These disputes require a choice among claims that cannot all receive priority, even where the parties agree about the condition that calls for a response.[47] An argument about fairness should begin with that choice, so the proposed remedy can be judged by the principle that actually governs its distribution of benefits and burdens.[48]

IV. When the Diagnosis Differs

The disagreement runs deeper when competing remedies rest on different accounts of what caused the condition the parties hope to change.[49] A person who understands poverty principally as a lack of opportunity will look toward schools, transportation, access to jobs, and capital.[50] A diagnosis centered on family breakdown will direct attention toward marriage, fatherhood, local institutions, the church, and the cultural expectations that sustain them.[51] Weak incentives to seek employment point toward benefits reform and policies that reward employment,[52] while a diagnosis centered on crime gives order priority because other improvements depend on safety.[53] Where credential requirements exclude capable people, the proposed response will involve licensing reform, vocational paths, and the removal of artificial barriers to employment.[54]

Debates over these remedies often proceed before the participants have identified their disagreement about causation, leaving each side to assess a proposal against a diagnosis its proponent has never accepted.[55] One sees insufficient compassion and the other insufficient judgment, even though each may have identified part of the problem and mistaken a different causal account for a defect in character.[56]

Recognizing that distinction has made political disagreement less contentious for me, because I try to begin with the possibility that an opposing position seeks to solve a problem through a different understanding of fairness. That habit has made me more attentive to tradeoffs and slower to infer malice, while also making me more demanding about the results a proposed policy would produce.[57]

Public policy will produce mistakes and unintended injuries, including harm to intended beneficiaries, and leaders can invoke compassion to justify control as readily as they invoke liberty to excuse indifference.[58] Programs can reward harmful conduct, just as regulations can impose costs on people whose conduct reflects responsibility and sound judgment.[59] Exceptional cases may become grounds for expanding bureaucratic discretion, with objections to the resulting power answered as evidence of cruelty.[60] Good intentions therefore remain subject to examination alongside the outcomes they produce,[61] and charity toward another person's motives leaves the consequences of that person's proposed remedy fully open to criticism.[62]

V. Fairness Under Cross-Examination

An appeal to fairness often asks for assent before its proponent has explained the principle on which the requested judgment depends.[63] A tax increase may rest on wealth's capacity to bear a larger public burden, while a tax cut may rest on the individual's claim to the fruits of labor. Regulation may protect consumers, while deregulation may reduce favoritism and barriers to entry or limit officials' authority to choose economic winners.[64] Each position requires examination on those grounds, with the word fair supplying the occasion for inquiry and leaving its outcome to be established.[65]

The questions concern who receives the benefit, which principle justifies it, what alternative would be displaced, whose authority permits the choice, what it costs, and whether its fairness survives examination across time.[66] A person who declines to answer those questions asks others to accept a moral conclusion while withholding the reasoning needed to assess it.[67]

That discipline has become especially necessary as Americans increasingly judge political opponents in moral terms, a tendency that makes disputes over policy harder to resolve.[68] In March 2026, Pew Research Center reported that the United States was the only country among twenty-five surveyed where more adults rated their fellow citizens' morality and ethics as bad than good, by 53 percent to 47 percent.[69] Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents were more likely to give the negative assessment than Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, by 60 percent to 46 percent.^70 A separate Pew report that month found sharp partisan differences in judgments concerning homosexuality, pornography, divorce, the death penalty, spanking children, marijuana, abortion, and extreme wealth.[70]

When a policy disagreement becomes evidence of moral failure, persuasion approaches impossibility because the parties begin by condemning people whose arguments they have yet to examine. The opposing side becomes an adversary to defeat, and the principle it seeks to protect receives little attention beyond whatever supports that prior judgment.[71]

VI. Power Needs a Rule

A society whose members disagree about fairness needs institutions that limit how any one understanding of justice can be imposed through public power.[72] In Federalist No. 51, Publius explains that government must control the governed and then be obliged to control itself, because “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”[73] The same essay identifies justice as the end of government and civil society, pursued until it is obtained or liberty is lost in the pursuit.^75 His warning applies to any politics whose pursuit of its preferred conception of fairness places the liberty of others at risk.[74]

The restoration sequence gives this institutional problem a practical illustration, with hospitals receiving priority, repairs serving the greatest number following them, and individual service problems coming later.[75] A stated rule requires decisions to follow an intelligible order and gives the public a basis for examining that order, including grounds for challenging or revising it.[76] People can then identify which claim received precedence and which was deferred, even while they continue to disagree about the merits of the choice.[77]

Political authority likewise requires procedures that discipline its exercise and reasons that can be examined by the people subject to it.[78] Policies gain legitimacy through their enactment into law, and officials must publicly defend each exercise of authority under the established rules that authorize it.[79] Those requirements make it possible to assess tradeoffs and assign responsibility, giving public trust a basis beyond an official's assurance of good intentions.[80] An official who possesses authority to act must identify the costs of the choice and accept responsibility for the people affected when those costs are judged justified.[81] Although that process takes longer than invoking moral urgency, its stated reasons and defined limits make officials more accountable for the discretion they exercise.[82]

The more contested the governing conception of fairness, the greater the need for lawful authority, definite rules, room for local variation, public accountability, and skepticism toward administrative power.[83] That conservative instinct warrants preservation because it directs attention to the means by which a government makes its judgment binding on others.[84] Government has responsibilities to discharge through legitimate means, with due regard for incentives, the costs of its choices, and the self-interest of the people entrusted to act.[85] Those most convinced of their own fairness are often those most in need of external constraints on the authority they exercise.[86]

VII. A More Exact Argument

Political conflict will persist because people understand fairness through principles that answer different questions and protect different claims upon a community.[87] Equality, need, merit, efficiency, order, liberty, responsibility, and mercy can demand competing results when applied to the same decision.[88] A free people will disagree about which should control, particularly where resources are scarce and the consequences of choosing are immediate.[89]

Political harmony can exact too high a price when securing agreement requires suppressing dissent or curtailing the freedom to challenge those in power.[90] A more defensible aim is to make disagreement precise enough that competing principles can be tested through argument while preserving the freedom that permits the dispute.[91]

That inquiry requires judgment before either assent or rejection,[92] beginning with the problem a proposal seeks to address, the conception of fairness it advances, and the evidence bearing on any allegation of good or bad faith.[93] A remedy must also be examined for the people who bear its costs, the people who receive its benefits, the arrangements through which decisions will be made, and the powers it creates.[94] Examining those details requires advocates to defend the priority their proposal establishes and to accept responsibility for the consequences of giving it legal force.[95]

This habit has made politics less corrosive for me by helping me identify the principle beneath a proposal before responding to it. I have become more attentive to the distinction between motive and remedy, and between remedy and consequence, while growing more cautious of any politics that assumes its own definition of fairness settles the dispute.[96]

A free society will continue to strain over these divisions because its citizens remain free to disagree about what justice requires.[97] We should identify those disagreements accurately, argue from the principles at issue, examine the consequences of the proposed remedies, and constrain the power used to enforce them.[98] An opposing position may prove mistaken or dangerous, and a precise account of its premises gives us firmer grounds for reaching that judgment than an accusation made before the argument has been heard.[99]

  1. See Julian Lamont & Christi Favor, Distributive Justice, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (last visited May 24, 2026) (explaining that principles of distributive justice provide moral guidance for political processes and structures that distribute benefits and burdens); Aristotle, Politics bk. III, ch. 9 (last visited May 24, 2026) (framing political justice around equality and the question whether equality or inequality should control and in what respect). ↩︎

  2. See Lamont & Favor, supra note 1 (describing distributive-justice principles as principles governing the allocation of benefits and burdens); Fred D. Miller, Jr., Aristotle’s Political Theory, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (last visited May 24, 2026) (explaining that Aristotle treats constitutional arguments as applications of distributive justice). ↩︎

  3. See Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Office of Readiness and Response, Power Sources (last visited May 24, 2026) (stating that power outages caused by large-scale disasters can last longer and can be life-threatening for people who depend on home-use medical devices); Environmental Protection Agency, Extreme Heat and Indoor Air Quality (last visited May 24, 2026) (explaining that power outages can render cooling systems unusable and that rising indoor temperatures can cause heat exhaustion or heat stroke); National Weather Service, Heat Safety Tips and Resources (last visited May 24, 2026) (stating that infants and young children are particularly vulnerable to heat-related illness and death because their bodies are less able to adapt to heat than adults’ bodies); CenterPoint Energy, How We Are Supporting Critical Care Customers (last visited May 24, 2026) (stating that registered critical-care customers depend on electric-powered life-sustaining equipment); Insurance Information Institute, When Disaster Strikes: Preparation, Response and Recovery for Your Business (last visited May 24, 2026) (stating that businesses temporarily shut down or close forever after disasters and citing the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the proposition that 40% of companies do not reopen after a disaster and another 25% fail within one year); U.S. Small Business Administration, Disaster Assistance (last visited May 24, 2026) (stating that Small Business Administration disaster loans may cover business operating expenses that could have been met had the disaster not occurred). ↩︎

  4. See Lamont & Favor, supra note 1 (explaining that distributive-justice principles guide the distribution of benefits and burdens); Aristotle, Politics bk. III, ch. 9, supra note 1 (asking whether equality or inequality should control and in what respect). ↩︎

  5. Deven Clarke, Third Ward Neighbors Band Together Amid Ongoing Power Outages Caused by Hurricane Beryl, KPRC 2 Click2Houston (July 10, 2024) (quoting CenterPoint’s 10:09 p.m. response that crews first restore facilities “vital to safety, health and welfare,” including hospitals, water-treatment plants, and public-service facilities, and then repair electrical facilities that return power to the largest number of people first). ↩︎

  6. Michael Lopardi, Here Is How Local Officials Prioritize Who Gets Their Power Restored After Storm, KPRC 2 Click2Houston (Feb. 12, 2021) (reporting, through CenterPoint spokesperson Olivia Koch and the company’s website, that crews restore facilities essential to community health and welfare first, then lines restoring the greatest number of customers in the least time, and finally service drops and underground lines linked to individual homes). ↩︎

  7. See Clarke, supra note 5; Lopardi, supra note 6. ↩︎

  8. See Lopardi, supra note 6 (describing individualized service drops and underground lines as later-stage restoration work); CenterPoint Energy, Power Restoration and Safety Information (last visited May 24, 2026) (stating that CenterPoint repairs the electric-delivery system up to the point where it connects to a home or business, while customer-side meter-box or weatherhead damage is the customer’s responsibility). ↩︎

  9. See Lamont & Favor, supra note 1 (surveying competing principles of distributive justice); Aristotle, Politics bk. V, ch. 1 (last visited May 24, 2026) (stating that factions agree justice is proportional but disagree over whether equality or inequality in one respect should control absolutely); James Madison, The Federalist No. 10, Yale Law School Avalon Project (last visited May 24, 2026) (arguing that different opinions and interests arise from human reason, self-love, and unequal property, and that regulating “various and interfering interests” is a principal task of legislation). ↩︎

  10. See Stefan Gosepath, Equality, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (last visited May 24, 2026) (describing equality as a contested concept with rhetorical power in political argument and explaining that equality requires specification of the relevant standard of comparison); Lamont & Favor, supra note 1 (surveying competing principles for distributing benefits and burdens). ↩︎

  11. See Madison, supra note 9 (describing legislation as the regulation of various and interfering interests); Lamont & Favor, supra note 1 (explaining that principles of distributive justice guide allocation of benefits and burdens). ↩︎

  12. See The Federalist No. 51, Yale Law School Avalon Project (last visited May 24, 2026) (arguing that government must be structured so that it controls the governed and then obliges itself to control itself). ↩︎

  13. See Jesse Graham, Jonathan Haidt & Brian A. Nosek, Liberals and Conservatives Rely on Different Sets of Moral Foundations, 96 J. Personality & Soc. Psych. 1029, 1029–30 (2009) (finding differences in how liberals and conservatives use moral foundations and describing ideological commitments as moral commitments); Pew Research Center, In 25-Country Survey, Americans Especially Likely To View Fellow Citizens as Morally Bad (Mar. 5, 2026) (reporting that Americans are unusually likely to rate fellow citizens as morally bad). ↩︎

  14. See Graham, Haidt & Nosek, supra note 13 (finding differences in moral foundations across liberal and conservative respondents); Gosepath, supra note 10 (explaining that equality is contested and that different standards yield different conceptions). ↩︎

  15. See Graham, Haidt & Nosek, supra note 13; Pew Research Center, supra note 13. ↩︎

  16. See Lamont & Favor, supra note 1 (distinguishing principles of distributive justice without treating all principles as equally correct); Madison, supra note 9 (warning that parties and factions may be actuated by passion or interest adverse to rights or the community’s permanent interests). ↩︎

  17. See Peter G. Peterson Foundation, What Are the Pros and Cons of Student Loan Forgiveness? (last visited May 24, 2026) (explaining that student-debt cancellation could help many borrowers while also carrying fiscal costs, distributional concerns, and limited effects on economic output); West Virginia v. EPA, 597 U.S. 697, 723–24 (2022) (requiring clear congressional authorization when an agency asserts power of vast economic and political significance). ↩︎

  18. See Graham, Haidt & Nosek, supra note 13; Jack Blumenau & Benjamin E. Lauderdale, Liberals and Conservatives Rely on Very Similar Sets of Foundations When Comparing Moral Violations, 119 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 746, 746–47 (2025) (arguing that voters on the left and right share broadly similar moral intuitions when comparing moral violations). ↩︎

  19. See Madison, supra note 9; The Federalist No. 51, supra note 12; Lamont & Favor, supra note 1. ↩︎

  20. See Gosepath, supra note 10 (explaining that equality requires a relevant standard of comparison and that different conceptions of equality arise from different standards); Lamont & Favor, supra note 1 (surveying competing distributive principles). ↩︎

  21. See Aristotle, Politics bk. V, ch. 1, supra note 9 (stating that democrats and oligarchs err by treating equality or inequality in one respect as absolute); Miller, supra note 2 (explaining Aristotle’s treatment of constitutional arguments as applications of distributive justice). ↩︎

  22. See Aristotle, Politics bk. III, ch. 9, supra note 1; Lamont & Favor, supra note 1. ↩︎

  23. See Aristotle, Politics bk. III, ch. 9, supra note 1; Miller, supra note 2. ↩︎

  24. See Aristotle, Politics bk. III, ch. 9, supra note 1 (describing democratic and oligarchic claims about equality and political justice); Miller, supra note 2 (discussing Aristotle’s analysis of democratic and oligarchic claims as applications of distributive justice). ↩︎

  25. See Aristotle, Politics bk. III, ch. 9, supra note 1 (stating that the parties “only express a sort of justice” and speak from “a limited and partial justice” while treating their claims as complete); see also Aristotle, Politics bk. V, ch. 1, supra note 9 (describing error when equality or inequality in one respect is treated as equality or inequality absolutely). ↩︎

  26. Aristotle, Politics bk. III, ch. 9, supra note 1. ↩︎

  27. See Miller, supra note 2 (stating that Aristotle’s particular justice means equality or fairness and includes distributive justice); Aristotle, Politics bk. III, ch. 9, supra note 1. ↩︎

  28. See Lamont & Favor, supra note 1; Aristotle, Politics bk. III, ch. 9, supra note 1. ↩︎

  29. See Aristotle, Politics bk. III, ch. 9, supra note 1; Aristotle, Politics bk. V, ch. 1, supra note 9. ↩︎

  30. See Aristotle, Politics bk. III, ch. 9, supra note 1; The Federalist No. 51, supra note 12. ↩︎

  31. See Lamont & Favor, supra note 1; Aristotle, Politics bk. III, ch. 9, supra note 1. ↩︎

  32. See Madison, supra note 9 (describing politics as involving “various and interfering interests”); Lamont & Favor, supra note 1. ↩︎

  33. See Gosepath, supra note 10; Lamont & Favor, supra note 1; Aristotle, Politics bk. III, ch. 9, supra note 1. ↩︎

  34. See New York City Public Schools, Specialized High Schools (last visited May 24, 2026) (describing selective public high-school admissions for eight testing Specialized High Schools using the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test). ↩︎

  35. See id. (stating that students with the highest Specialized High Schools Admissions Test scores receive offers first and that the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test is the only criterion used to admit students to the eight testing Specialized High Schools). ↩︎

  36. See Houston Independent School District, K-12 Application Dates & Process (last visited May 24, 2026) (stating that all eligible Phase I applications are entered into a lottery to determine seat placements and that eligible students not offered a seat are automatically placed on a waitlist). ↩︎

  37. See New York City Public Schools, Discovery Programs (last visited May 24, 2026) (describing a summer admissions program for certain disadvantaged students who meet test-score and school- or neighborhood-poverty requirements). ↩︎

  38. See Adam Goldstein & Orestes P. Hastings, School Quality Influences Where Parents Choose to Live—and How Much They’re Willing to Pay for Their Homes, Urban Institute Housing Matters (Jan. 8, 2020) (summarizing research finding that where a family lives commonly designates where a child attends school, school quality and housing price are linked, and families with children take on greater housing-cost increases for the same improvement in school quality); Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717, 741–42 (1974) (recognizing local control over schools as a longstanding educational tradition); San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 49–50 (1973) (discussing local taxation and control in public education). ↩︎

  39. See Lamont & Favor, supra note 1; Aristotle, Politics bk. III, ch. 9, supra note 1. ↩︎

  40. See National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Proactive Policing: Effects on Crime and Communities 1–4 (2018) (last visited May 24, 2026) (examining policing strategies intended to prevent and reduce crime and their effects on communities); Urban Institute, The National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice: Key Process and Outcome Evaluation Findings 1 (2019) (stating that communities experiencing high levels of crime and concentrated disadvantage, particularly communities of color, also distrust police and are less likely to report crimes or partner on crime-prevention efforts). ↩︎

  41. See National Academies, supra note 40; Urban Institute, supra note 40. ↩︎

  42. See Lamont & Favor, supra note 1; National Academies, supra note 40; Urban Institute, supra note 40. ↩︎

  43. See Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U.S. 477, 488–89, 506 (2023) (describing the Biden Administration’s student-loan-discharge program and holding that the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 did not authorize the Secretary’s debt-cancellation plan); Peter G. Peterson Foundation, supra note 17 (summarizing arguments for and against student-loan forgiveness). ↩︎

  44. See Adam Looney, The Student Debt Burden and Its Impact on Racial Justice, Borrowers, and the Economy, Brookings (Apr. 13, 2021) (testifying that federal student loans impose heavy burdens on many borrowers, especially those from lower-income families, first-generation students, and students of color); Peter G. Peterson Foundation, supra note 17 (describing proponents’ view that debt relief could improve borrowers’ financial health). ↩︎

  45. See Peter G. Peterson Foundation, supra note 17 (explaining objections that student-debt forgiveness would be costly, could provide outsized benefits to high-income households, and would not address the drivers of student debt); Biden, 600 U.S. at 488–89 (describing the scale of the cancellation program and the legal challenge to executive authority). ↩︎

  46. See Biden, 600 U.S. at 488–89, 506; Lamont & Favor, supra note 1. ↩︎

  47. See Lamont & Favor, supra note 1. ↩︎

  48. See Gosepath, supra note 10; Aristotle, Politics bk. III, ch. 9, supra note 1. ↩︎

  49. See American Enterprise Institute/Brookings Working Group on Poverty and Opportunity, Opportunity, Responsibility, and Security: A Consensus Plan for Reducing Poverty and Restoring the American Dream 5–10 (2015) (describing poverty, opportunity, family, work, and education as intertwined policy concerns and explaining that political disagreement often arises when proposed solutions rest on different premises); Madison, supra note 9. ↩︎

  50. See American Enterprise Institute/Brookings Working Group, supra note 49, at 5–10, 54–69 (framing poverty policy around opportunity, work, family, and education); U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Barriers Within Low- and Moderate-Income Communities, Monthly Labor Review (Mar. 2020) (summarizing research identifying job availability and pay, qualifications, education and training, transportation, childcare and family issues, crime and substance abuse, housing instability, health, and public-assistance programs as employment barriers in low- and moderate-income communities). ↩︎

  51. See American Enterprise Institute/Brookings Working Group, supra note 49, at 30–41 (chapter on family); Ron Haskins, Fighting Poverty Through Incentives and Work Mandates for Young Men, Brookings (Sept. 1, 2007) (discussing family, schools, churches, peer groups, and civic associations in relation to young men and poverty). ↩︎

  52. See Haskins, supra note 51 (examining wage subsidies and work requirements as policies intended to increase employment and earnings and reduce crime, unemployment, nonmarital births, and poverty); American Enterprise Institute/Brookings Working Group, supra note 49, at 42–53 (chapter on work). ↩︎

  53. See National Academies, supra note 40; Madison, supra note 9. ↩︎

  54. See U.S. Department of Treasury, Council of Economic Advisers & U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Licensing: A Framework for Policymakers 4 (July 2015) (stating that licensing can reduce employment opportunities, lower wages for excluded workers, and increase costs for consumers); Federal Trade Commission, Economic Liberty (last visited May 24, 2026) (stating that unnecessary licensing restrictions can close the door on job opportunities, prevent workers from marketing their skills, reduce entrepreneurship, and stifle competition). ↩︎

  55. See American Enterprise Institute/Brookings Working Group, supra note 49; Graham, Haidt & Nosek, supra note 13. ↩︎

  56. See Pew Research Center, supra note 13; Graham, Haidt & Nosek, supra note 13; Blumenau & Lauderdale, supra note 18. ↩︎

  57. See Peter G. Peterson Foundation, supra note 17; Looney, supra note 44. Both discuss the relationship between debt-relief goals, fiscal costs, and the distribution of benefits. ↩︎

  58. See Peter G. Peterson Foundation, supra note 17; West Virginia, 597 U.S. at 723–24; Madison, supra note 9. ↩︎

  59. See U.S. Department of Treasury et al., supra note 54; Haskins, supra note 51. ↩︎

  60. See The Federalist No. 51, supra note 12; West Virginia, 597 U.S. at 723–24. ↩︎

  61. See Lamont & Favor, supra note 1; Peter G. Peterson Foundation, supra note 17; West Virginia, 597 U.S. at 723–24. ↩︎

  62. See Lamont & Favor, supra note 1; Peter G. Peterson Foundation, supra note 17. ↩︎

  63. See Gosepath, supra note 10 (describing equality as contested and rhetorically powerful); Lamont & Favor, supra note 1. ↩︎

  64. See Lamont & Favor, supra note 1 (discussing distributive principles including welfare, equality, desert, and liberty); Gosepath, supra note 10 (discussing equality as a prescriptive political concept requiring a standard of comparison); 15 U.S.C. § 45(a)(1) (declaring unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce unlawful); National Archives, Interstate Commerce Act (1887) (last visited May 24, 2026) (describing early federal regulation aimed at railroad rates and discriminatory practices); U.S. Department of Treasury et al., supra note 54; Federal Trade Commission, supra note 54. ↩︎

  65. See Gosepath, supra note 10; Lamont & Favor, supra note 1; Aristotle, Politics bk. III, ch. 9, supra note 1. ↩︎

  66. See Lamont & Favor, supra note 1; Madison, supra note 9; The Federalist No. 51, supra note 12. ↩︎

  67. See Gosepath, supra note 10; Lamont & Favor, supra note 1. ↩︎

  68. See Pew Research Center, As Partisan Hostility Grows, Signs of Frustration With the Two-Party System (Aug. 9, 2022) (documenting increases from 2016 to 2022 in the shares of Republicans and Democrats who viewed members of the opposing party as more immoral than other Americans); Pew Research Center, supra note 13; Pew Research Center, What Do Americans Consider Immoral? (Mar. 19, 2026). ↩︎

  69. Pew Research Center, supra note 13. ↩︎

  70. Pew Research Center, What Do Americans Consider Immoral?, supra note 68; Pew Research Center, Appendix: Detailed Tables (last visited May 24, 2026) (listing morality responses for pornography, marijuana, divorce, homosexuality, the death penalty, spanking children, abortion, and being extremely rich). ↩︎

  71. See Pew Research Center, supra note 13; Graham, Haidt & Nosek, supra note 13; Madison, supra note 9. ↩︎

  72. See The Federalist No. 51, supra note 12; Madison, supra note 9. ↩︎

  73. The Federalist No. 51, supra note 12. ↩︎

  74. See id. ↩︎

  75. See Clarke, supra note 5; Lopardi, supra note 6. ↩︎

  76. See Lopardi, supra note 6; CenterPoint Energy, Power Restoration and Safety Information, supra note 8. ↩︎

  77. See Lamont & Favor, supra note 1; The Federalist No. 51, supra note 12. ↩︎

  78. See The Federalist No. 51, supra note 12; West Virginia, 597 U.S. at 723–24. ↩︎

  79. See The Federalist No. 51, supra note 12; U.S. Const. art. I, § 1; U.S. Const. art. II, § 1; U.S. Const. art. III, § 1. ↩︎

  80. See The Federalist No. 51, supra note 12; Madison, supra note 9. ↩︎

  81. See Lamont & Favor, supra note 1; The Federalist No. 51, supra note 12. ↩︎

  82. See West Virginia, 597 U.S. at 723–24; The Federalist No. 51, supra note 12. ↩︎

  83. See The Federalist No. 51, supra note 12; Madison, supra note 9; West Virginia, 597 U.S. at 723–24. ↩︎

  84. See The Federalist No. 51, supra note 12; Madison, supra note 9. ↩︎

  85. See The Federalist No. 51, supra note 12; Madison, supra note 9; U.S. Department of Treasury et al., supra note 54. ↩︎

  86. See The Federalist No. 51, supra note 12 (arguing that government requires internal controls because those administering power are human); Madison, supra note 9 (warning that no man should be judge in his own cause because interest biases judgment). ↩︎

  87. See Lamont & Favor, supra note 1; Gosepath, supra note 10. ↩︎

  88. See Lamont & Favor, supra note 1 (surveying distributive theories including equality, priority to the least advantaged, desert, welfare, and liberty); Aristotle, Politics bk. V, ch. 1, supra note 9. ↩︎

  89. See Madison, supra note 9; The Federalist No. 51, supra note 12. ↩︎

  90. See Madison, supra note 9 (stating that liberty is to faction what air is to fire and that abolishing liberty to remove faction would be worse than the disease). ↩︎

  91. See id.; Aristotle, Politics bk. III, ch. 9, supra note 1. ↩︎

  92. See Gosepath, supra note 10; Lamont & Favor, supra note 1. ↩︎

  93. See Madison, supra note 9; The Federalist No. 51, supra note 12. ↩︎

  94. See Lamont & Favor, supra note 1; West Virginia, 597 U.S. at 723–24. ↩︎

  95. See Gosepath, supra note 10; Aristotle, Politics bk. III, ch. 9, supra note 1. ↩︎

  96. See Gosepath, supra note 10; Lamont & Favor, supra note 1. ↩︎

  97. See Madison, supra note 9. ↩︎

  98. See Lamont & Favor, supra note 1; The Federalist No. 51, supra note 12; West Virginia, 597 U.S. at 723–24. ↩︎

  99. See Graham, Haidt & Nosek, supra note 13; Blumenau & Lauderdale, supra note 18; Aristotle, Politics bk. III, ch. 9, supra note 1. ↩︎

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