Policy Congruence Between the President and the Solicitor General

Shull, Steven A.

doi:10.1177/106591299805100211

Cited by 19 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…It has enabled governmental participation and perhaps leadership in the development of new or changed constitutional policies in the civil rights field" (p. 119). Meinhold and Shull (1998) offered empirical support in their study that solicitors general are responsive to the policy attentiveness and ideological preferences of the appointing presidents.…”

Section: The Institutional Environment: the Role Of The Solicitor Genmentioning

confidence: 98%

Executive‐Judicial Interaction as a Factor in Explaining Presidential Policy Making

Graham

2002

Pres Stud Q

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This study analyzes the nexus between the executive and judicial branches in understanding presidential success in domestic policy making from a system of separated powers perspective. The author investigates the nature of the interaction between the solicitor general and the Supreme Court's rulings in cases in which the federal government participated in the subissue area of civil rights during the Kennedy administration. The author found that the administration's civil rights litigation stralegy was highly succesful before the Warren Court. However, a content analysis of the solicitor general‘s briefs revealed a more complex and cautious approach to the civil rights cases. I conclude by suggesting that an insightful line of inquiry into understanding presidential influence in domestic policy making should include, not exclude, the Supreme Court.

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Section: The Institutional Environment: the Role Of The Solicitor Genmentioning

confidence: 98%

Executive‐Judicial Interaction as a Factor in Explaining Presidential Policy Making

Graham

2002

Pres Stud Q

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“…A second approach is to code a given SG's positions before the Court as liberal or conservative and then aggregate these positions (e.g., Meinhold and Shull 1998;Segal 1988). 2 These measures do not make the assumption that SGs perfectly represent the president's positions and allow for within-president variation in the ideological location of the SG.…”

Section: Measuring the Ideological Position Of The Solicitor Generalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The literature suggests that there are three possible influences on the positioning of an SG. First, there is near unanimous agreement that the SG, as an agent and a representative of the executive branch, ought to advocate on behalf of the president's policy objectives (e.g., Bailey, Kamoie, and Maltzman 2005;Meinhold and Shull 1998;Segal 1988). Whether this is due to the selection of an SG who shares the president's preferences or there are incentives and expectations for her to pursue the president's agenda is not clear.…”

Section: The Positioning Of the Solicitor Generalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Locating U.S. Solicitors General in the Supreme Court's Policy Space

Hansford¹,

Depaoli²,

Canelo³

2019

Pres Stud Q

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The U.S. Solicitor General (SG) is the most direct link between the executive branch and the Supreme Court. Spatial models of the SG's involvement at the Court necessitate locating the SG in the same policy space as the justices. We treat the SG's positions advocated in amicus curiae briefs as equivalent to votes in these cases and employ an item response model that yields facially valid estimates of the locations of the SGs and justices serving during the Eisenhower through Obama administrations. We find that the ideological orientation of the appointing president has a strong effect on the location of the SGs. There is mixed evidence of SGs orienting themselves toward the median justice on the Court, implying that SGs might also serve a second principal in some cases.

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“…Research indicates that presidential statements are an important predictor of discretionary solicitor general behavior (Meinhold & Shull, 1998;Pacelle, 2003;Segal, 1990). Meinhold and Shull (1998) found that more policy statements by the president are related to more amicus briefs by the solicitor general, regardless of the policy area. While presidents can only submit amicus briefs on cases the Supreme Court has decided to hear, which limits choice, the presidential use of amicus briefs is not completely constrained.…”

Section: Presidential Policy Instrumentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Right Tool for the Job: The Canalization of Presidential Policy Attention by Policy Instrument

Larsen-Price

2012

Policy Studies Journal

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This article investigates how presidential policy attention is allocated across policy tools and whether there is a channeling of tool use by policy area. I also examine whether there is evidence of disproportionate information processing within presidential policy attention allocation and whether it is common across presidential policy tools. Presidential messages, hearings on administrations' legislative proposals, amicus briefs, and executive orders are employed to capture presidential policy tools. The allocation of attention via these four instruments is examined from 1957–2007 in the policy areas of defense and foreign affairs, macroeconomics, banking and commerce, civil rights, law and crime, and labor and immigration. I find that there is a canalization of presidential policy attention by instrument, and that the opportunity structure of policy tools shapes attention allocation. Additionally, I find evidence for punctuated equilibrium theory in the allocation of presidential policy attention via these four tools. When presidents do shift their attention to an issue area, they often attack the issue with some coordination of their policy instruments.

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Policy Congruence Between the President and the Solicitor General

Cited by 19 publications

References 9 publications

Executive‐Judicial Interaction as a Factor in Explaining Presidential Policy Making

Executive‐Judicial Interaction as a Factor in Explaining Presidential Policy Making

Locating U.S. Solicitors General in the Supreme Court's Policy Space

The Right Tool for the Job: The Canalization of Presidential Policy Attention by Policy Instrument

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