The New York Post has described New York’s court-ordered homeless housing program as the “nation’s most bizarre program for the homeless.” The Post also noted that the city’s efforts to comply with the decades-old court program was “like trying to bail the ocean with a bucket.”

From education to prison management, elected officials around the country are laboring beneath onerous and incredibly expensive court mandated consent decrees. Like their colleagues in New York¸ these officials are treading water until they pass the burden on to the next hapless administration.

Historically, state and local officials were responsible for directing public policy to address social ills. Today, activists and reformers see these officials as part of the problem, not the solution, and use consent decrees to trap them in court-ordered strait jackets.

The result has been an unhappy marriage of court power and public policy that hampers flexibility in the delivery of public services and undermines democratic accountability. In Democracy by Decree, Sandler and Schoenbrod offer practical reforms that would set governments free from unwanted and unnecessary judicial strangleholds, allow courts to return to their legitimate job of protecting rights, and strengthen democratic institutions.

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