Judicial sunsets are not normal means.

In some of the most noteworthy cases in recent memory, the Justices of the Supreme Court have conspicuously pressed the defenders of controversial government policies to provide a time frame in which those policies can achieve the government’s asserted interests.1 The desire for some “sunset” to those policies has thus become a notable refrain in the Court’s recent constitutional jurisprudence, particularly in Voting Rights Act and educational affirmative action cases.2 While there is a wealth of scholarship evaluating the characteristics and propriety of general legislative sunset powers and the use of statutory sunset clauses, few evaluations of judicially enforced sunsets on the constitutionality of a government policy exist.