Senator Opposition to Supreme Court Nominations: Reference Dependence on the Departing Justice

Zigerell, L. J.

doi:10.3162/036298010792069152

Cited by 8 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 28 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…While our focus is squarely on the context of the Supreme Court, the theoretical step of allowing λ to 6 One additional possibility would be to develop a model variant where senators consider the location of the nominee against the departing justice-in fact, Zigerell (2010) finds support for the hypothesis that a senator is more likely to supports who are closer to the senator, relative to the exiting justice. However, to adopt this approach would be to completely abandon the move-the-median framework, since even nominees who are distant from a departing justice may not affect the location of the new median justice at all.…”

Section: Median-equivalentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, to adopt this approach would be to completely abandon the move-the-median framework, since even nominees who are distant from a departing justice may not affect the location of the new median justice at all. (Notably, Zigerell (2010) advances a psychological mechanism for his theory, rather than one grounded in the spatial theory of voting; moreover, he argues—and shows some evidence in support of the claim—that the “departing justice” effect is an alternative story to MTM theory.) In addition, to implicitly assume that the departing justice is the reversion point would abandon the use of a single reversion point to unify all the model variants, which is highly desirable from a theoretical standpoint.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 13 Cameron, Kastellec, and Park (2013) conduct indirect tests of whether senators vote differently when a nominee would move the median, and find some support for this prediction. Zigerell (2010) also conducts indirect tests; he finds only limited support for the theory. However, no direct tests of the MTM theory’s predictions for senators have ever been conducted. …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Are Supreme Court Nominations a Move-the-Median Game?

Cameron

Kastellec

2016

Am Polit Sci Rev

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We conduct a theoretical and empirical re-evaluation of move-the-median (MTM) models of Supreme Court nominations—the one theory of appointment politics that connects presidential selection and senatorial confirmation decisions. We develop a theoretical framework that encompasses the major extant models, formalizing the tradeoff between concerns about the location of the new median justice versus concerns about the ideology of the nominee herself. We then use advances in measurement and scaling to place presidents, senators, justices, and nominees on the same scale, allowing us to test predictions that hold across all model variants. We find very little support for MTM theory. Senators have been much more accommodating of the president’s nominees than MTM theory would suggest—many have been confirmed when the theory predicted they should have been rejected. These errors have been consequential: presidents have selected many nominees who are much more extreme than MTM theory would predict. These results raise serious questions about the adequacy of MTM theory for explaining confirmation politics and have important implications for assessing the ideological composition of the Court.

show abstract

Section: Median-equivalentmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Are Supreme Court Nominations a Move-the-Median Game?

Cameron

Kastellec

2016

Am Polit Sci Rev

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As Johnson and Roberts (2005) have argued, for example, the filibuster pivot may play an important role (see also Rohde and Shepsle 2007). The previous median on the Court, rather than the median of the Court during a vacancy, might provide a more appropriate baseline (Krehbiel 2007;Zigerell 2010). The ideology of the departing justice may influence confirmation votes (Zigerell 2010), as may public opinion (Kastellec, Lax, and Phillips 2010).…”

Section: The Senate and Supreme Court Confirmationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The previous median on the Court, rather than the median of the Court during a vacancy, might provide a more appropriate baseline (Krehbiel 2007;Zigerell 2010). The ideology of the departing justice may influence confirmation votes (Zigerell 2010), as may public opinion (Kastellec, Lax, and Phillips 2010). And both ideology and partisanship seem to be increasing in importance in recent years (Epstein et al 2006;Shipan 2008).…”

Section: The Senate and Supreme Court Confirmationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Amorphous Relationship between Congress and the Courts

Bailey

Maltzman

Shipan

2011

Oxford Handbooks Online

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

836 michael a. bailey, forrest maltzman, & charles r. shipan also Devins and Fisher 2004; Fisher 1988; Ackerman 1991). According to Whittington, this power was gradually ceded to the courts by the elected branches of government through distinctly political (as opposed to legal or constitutional) processes, and the elected branches retain the ability to exercise or reclaim some of this power in certain circumstances (Whittington 2007, 2009). In the early years of the republic, according to Whittington, there were two competing theories of constitutional power: judicial supremacy and departmentalism. Judicial supremacy, as the name implies, holds that the judicial branch is the ultimate constitutional authority, while departmentalism (favored by Thomas Jefferson, among others) envisions each branch of government playing a role in constitutional interpretation (Whittington 2007, xi). While conventional wisdom holds that judicial review and judicial supremacy sprang suddenly into being through the legal maneuverings of the Marshall Court in the Marbury v. Madison decision, Whittington argues that these concepts developed gradually throughout the nineteenth century. (2007, 2009) "[B]y the 1850s," according to Whittington, "the federal courts had become a forum within which constitutional objections to federal legislation could be raised and resolved" (2009, 1259). By the mid-twentieth century, the time of the Warren Court, the doctrine of judicial supremacy had clearly won out, to the point where the Court explicitly stated in Baker v. Carr (1962) that it was the "ultimate interpreter of the Constitution" (cited in Whittington 2007, 3). According to Whittington, however, this state of affairs was not merely the result of the actions of the Court itself. The elected branches of government played a role in transferring supreme constitutional authority to the judicial branch because it was in their political interests to do so. Whittington offers a number of scenarios in which judicial supremacy could be advantageous to elected leaders. For example, the leaders of an embattled governing coalition can avoid making unpopular decisions by deferring to the judgment of the Court, as President Buchanan did on the question of slavery in the 1850s and President Carter did on the question of abortion in the 1970s (Whittington 2007, 66-9). In other words, judicial supremacy offers a way for elected leaders to attempt to depoliticize controversial issues that threaten their governing coalitions. Similarly, judicial supremacy may offer elected leaders the opportunity to attain desirable policy outcomes without incurring the transaction costs of organizing coalitions in the elected branches. Graber (1993, 36) articulates this argument: Historically, the justices have most often exercised their power to declare state and federal practices unconstitutional only when the dominant national coalition is unable or unwilling to settle some public dispute. The justices in these circumstances do not merely fill a void created by the legislati...

show abstract

Judicial Nominations to the Courts of Appeals and the Strategic Decision to Elevate

Norris

2020

Justice System Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Senator Opposition to Supreme Court Nominations: Reference Dependence on the Departing Justice

Cited by 8 publications

References 28 publications

Are Supreme Court Nominations a Move-the-Median Game?

Are Supreme Court Nominations a Move-the-Median Game?

The Amorphous Relationship between Congress and the Courts

Judicial Nominations to the Courts of Appeals and the Strategic Decision to Elevate

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About