Motivated Reasoning and Attitudes Towards Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings: Evidence from Five Nominations and an Experiment

Abstract

Relying on theories of motivated reasoning, I hypothesize that individuals who favor a nominee will prefer a legalistic confirmation hearing, while those who oppose a nominee will prefer a politicized confirmation hearing. Analyzing survey data from five recent nominees and a survey experiment, I find support for this hypothesis. The results have implications for how the public interacts with the nature of the Court’s hybrid institutional structure. Specifically, I argue the results support the notion that the public engages in a political calculation when making judgements about the Court. When it serves their preferences, people will view the Court as a legalistic institution; however, when individuals believe there is an advantage in viewing the Court as a political institution, they are more likely to desire the Court to be evaluated in political ways.

The Rule of Law in Red and Blue: Affective Polarization and Support for Legal Institutions in the United States

“…What is more, these results could be partly due to the timing of the survey. We might expect the interplay of contentious and politicized nominations (Armaly & Lane, 2023; Badas, 2023; Rogowski & Stone, 2021), allegations of scandal associated with Supreme Court justices (Boston et al, 2023), and unpopular decisions, such as the overturning of Roe v. Wade (Christenson & Glick, 2015; Haglin et al, 2021), to lead the public to view the Court through an increasingly negative partisan lens than in the recent past. Ultimately, our findings demonstrate that while partisan presidential cues can impact public perceptions of legal institutions across institutional contexts (i.e., the FBI and DOJ), there are some boundary conditions to the potency of presidential cues in modulating support for legal institutions like the U.S. Supreme Court, which has exhibited remarkable durability in maintaining public support (Nelson & Tucker, 2021).…”

Social Imagery and Judicial Legitimacy: Evidence From Evangelical Christians

“…Specifically, we conduct a conjoint experiment. Conjoint experiments are widely used to understand preferences toward judicial institutions (Sen 2016; Badas and Stauffer 2019; Badas 2022; Krewson and Owens 2021; 2022). We follow the standard approach of these studies.…”

Judicial Decision-Making. A Survey of the Experimental Evidence

“…Those in favor of the candidate wish the Senate hearing to be formal and legalistic. Those opposed to the candidate argue for a more politicized procedure (Badas 2022). A conjoint experiment finds a spillover from the US State to the federal level.…”