No Longer Disabled: The Federal Courts and the Politics of Social Security Disability

(Hardback)

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This book focuses on the Reagan administration's broad attempt from 1980 to 1984 to strike thousands of Social Security disability recipients from government rolls. . . . [Mezey] enriches her study with a brief history of federal disability policy and provides a review of contending arguments over public policy and judicial activism. Of particular interest is the legal battle over the medical criteria used for determining desability and the SSA's deliberate policy of nonacquiescence when confronted with adverse judicial rulings. . . . A well-documented and valuable addition to case studies on the Reagan administration's efforts to cut human services. Choice This book is a case study of judicial policy making. It focuses on the role of adjudication in the making and refining of federal policy. It goes beyond the scope of most treatments of social security and the disability policy to examine the stages of judicial review and subsequent legislative and bureaucratic responses to adjudication. It then proceeds to analyze the resulting changes in legislative policies. The study is devoted to two themes. First, it provides an opportunity for empirical analysis of the role of the lower federal courts in the policy making arena; second, it examines the role of litigation as a political activity. This issue serves as a timely opportunity to explore the impact of federal courts on bureaucratic and congressional policies by focusing on the interactions of institutions involved in the disability policy-making process. By examining the effects of the courts on social policy, this case study offers new perspectives on the role of the federal courts in the political system.

Reviews

This book focuses on the Reagan's administration's broad attempt from 1980 to 1984 to strike thousands of Social Security disability recipients from government rolls. Mezey (Loyola) examines the actions of the Social Security Administration (SSA) to restrict eligibility of claimants, the ensuing litigation to halt such efforts, and the impact of juducial review on SSA practices and on the eventual passage of the 1984 Disability Reform Act by Congress. She enriches her study with a brief history of federal disability policy and provides a review of contending arguments over public policy and judicial activism. Of particular interest is the legal battle over the medical criteria used for determining disability and the SSA's deliberate policy of nonacquiesence when confronted with adverse judicial rulings. Mezey argues that, although these rulings in themselves did not result in agency-wide changes, they did give legitimacy to recipient claims and became part of a broader political strategy for policy reform. A well-documented and valuable addition to case studies on the Reagan administration's efforts to cut human services.-Choice
"This book focuses on the Reagan's administration's broad attempt from 1980 to 1984 to strike thousands of Social Security disability recipients from government rolls. Mezey (Loyola) examines the actions of the Social Security Administration (SSA) to restrict eligibility of claimants, the ensuing litigation to halt such efforts, and the impact of juducial review on SSA practices and on the eventual passage of the 1984 Disability Reform Act by Congress. She enriches her study with a brief history of federal disability policy and provides a review of contending arguments over public policy and judicial activism. Of particular interest is the legal battle over the medical criteria used for determining disability and the SSA's deliberate policy of nonacquiesence when confronted with adverse judicial rulings. Mezey argues that, although these rulings in themselves did not result in agency-wide changes, they did give legitimacy to recipient claims and became part of a broader political strategy for policy reform. A well-documented and valuable addition to case studies on the Reagan administration's efforts to cut human services."-Choice

Author Bio

SUSAN GLUCK MEZEY is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Loyola University of Chicago.