Federal judges are supposed to be fair and neutral when it comes to interpreting the Constitution. But under what's known as "rational basis review," if judges think your rights aren't important (or "fundamental"), then laws are almost always presumed to be constitutional.

That means judges don't need facts to uphold laws that violate many of your rights. So under the rational basis test, terrible laws can only be struck down if the person challenging it beats back every single justification for that law—including ones that are completely made-up!





As if that weren't bad enough, neither the words "rational basis review" nor this whole concept of fake judging appear anywhere in the Constitution.



In fact, the idea behind it dates back to a footnote from a Supreme Court case in the 1930s involving federal milk regulations.



Decades later, that tiny little footnote has spawned all sorts of insanity like…