The increasing public attention paid to Supreme Court nominations has elevated the salience of Senate confirmation battles, raising interesting questions about the impact of constituency preferences on senators' voting behavior. In this article, we explore this relationship using a logistical regression model to examine the impacts of African-American constituency size and the proximity of reelection on the roll call behavior of senators on the Clarence Thomas confirmation vote. Our analyses indicate that these factors were both statistically and substantively significant in the Thomas case. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of such findings.

Sports issues have increasingly become prominent items on the urban policy agenda. Most demands for sports-related policies have been woven into the general fabric of economic development in the community. in this article, the authors examine the issues surrounding sports stadium development in Chicago from 1985-90. An urban regime framework, based on the notion of governing coalitions, is used to analyze the incorporation of stadiums into Chicago's policy agenda during these years. The article is instructive of the way in which progressive city administrations have used the regime to mediate corporate demands for the often intangible benefits of sports. Copyright 1991 by The Policy Studies Organization.

Studies of the Supreme Court-Congressional relationship have concentrated on the interaction that occurs between the two institutions in constitutional policy areas while ignoring the presumably more routine aspects of the relationship involving statutory issues. This article focuses on the less visible side of Court-Congressional interaction by examining Congress' response to the Court's interpretations of labor and antitrust statutes. Patterns of reaction are delineated, and several hypotheses linking Congressional response to characteristics of the Court's decision are tested. Factors such as the unanimity and direction of the Court's decision, which are often thought to have some bearing on the response of other political actors to the Court, do not, however, provide clear-cut explanations for Congressional reaction to the Court's statutory decisions. Striking differences are found between the labor and antitrust policy areas, suggesting that those who study judicial impact need to be careful in generalizing about the variables and conditions that affect response to the Court.

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