Measuring Deviations from Expected Voting Patterns on Collegial Courts

Edelman, Paul H.; Klein, David; Lindquist, Stefanie A.

doi:10.1111/j.1740-1461.2008.00142.x

Cited by 23 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…9 9 Seminal work in the scholarly literature includes that of Pritchett (1948) and Schubert (1965), with recent examples from the truly sizable body of extant research including Clark (2006), Edelman et al. (2008), and Keele et al.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Small Group Context: Designated District Court Judges in the U.S. Courts of Appeals

Collins

Martinek

2011

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies

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Decision making in the U.S. courts of appeals occurs primarily in three‐judge panels. A substantial number of cases are decided by panels that include a judge who is a district court judge serving temporarily on the appeals bench. This means that court of appeals decision making is often a function of small groups with temporary members. Here, we examine whether designated district court judges behave differently than their court of appeals colleagues when they cast their votes in cases they are deciding as members of three‐judge appellate panels. In doing so, we suggest a profitable direction for theory building vis‐à‐vis judicial decision making. Our analysis of the ideological direction of the votes judges cast, as well as the variance in those votes, indicates that judges on three‐judge panels are influenced by the preferences of their fellow panelists, and that designated district court judges, while no more variable than their court of appeals colleagues, are more susceptible to the influence of their peers than are regular members of the courts of appeals in a nontrivial number of cases.

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confidence: 99%

The Small Group Context: Designated District Court Judges in the U.S. Courts of Appeals

Collins

Martinek

2011

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies

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“…This would be easy to do if the justices were considerate enough to tell us when ideology dominates their decisions, but they are not so cooperative, and the resulting methodological challenge is a daunting one. Our solution is to exploit a measure of voting “disorder” that we previously developed (Edelman et al. 2008, hereafter EKL1).…”

Section: Research Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

Consensus, Disorder, and Ideology on the Supreme Court

Edelman

Klein

Lindquist

2012

J Empirical Legal Studies

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Ideological models are widely accepted as the basis for many academic studies of the Supreme Court because of their power in predicting the justices' decision-making behavior. Not all votes are easily explained or well predicted by attitudes, however. Consensus in Supreme Court voting, particularly the extreme consensus of unanimity, has often puzzled Court observers who adhere to ideological accounts of judicial decision making. Are consensus and (ultimately) unanimity driven by extreme factual scenarios or extreme lower court rulings such that even the most liberal and most conservative justice can agree on the case disposition? Or are they driven by other, nonattitudinal influences on judicial decisions? In this article, we rely on a measure of deviations from expected ideological patterns in the justices' voting to assess whether ideological models provide an adequate explanation of consensus on the Court. We find that case factors that predict voting disorder also predict consensus. Based on that finding, we conclude that consensus on the Court cannot be explained by ideology alone; rather, it often results from ideology being outweighed by other influences on justices' decisions.

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“…During the same time period, a single dimension also explains 75-80% of each justice's votes. Moreover, Grofman and Brazill (2002) examine votes cast between 1953 and 1991 and conclude that Supreme Court decisions are "fundamental[ly] unidimensional" (p. 57) (but see Edelman, Klein and Lindquist 2008). While it appears that Supreme Court justices exhibit more ideological drift over time than their legislative counterparts, the fact remains that merit votes may be better explained by a single dimension than legislative votes.…”

Section: Ideal Point Estimates Of Legislators and Justicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Supreme Court Justices

2010

American Political Leaders 1789–2009

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We evaluate the claim that Supreme Court justices act like legislators in robes by: (1) comparing unidimensional ideal-point estimations of Congressional and Supreme Court decision making, (2) explicitly tying the Supreme Court's votes on judicial review of federal legislation to Congressional roll call votes on the same bill, (3) evaluating the effect of policy preferences on decisions to strike federal legislation, (4) comparing the influence of the Supreme Court on Congressional decisions to that of Congress on Supreme Court decisions, and (5) comparing the role of party on the Supreme Court and in the Senate, and. The evidence strongly suggests that Supreme Court justices act as if they are "legislators in robes."

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Measuring Deviations from Expected Voting Patterns on Collegial Courts

Cited by 23 publications

References 17 publications

The Small Group Context: Designated District Court Judges in the U.S. Courts of Appeals

The Small Group Context: Designated District Court Judges in the U.S. Courts of Appeals

Consensus, Disorder, and Ideology on the Supreme Court

Supreme Court Justices

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