The Nature of Supreme Court Power

Abstract

Few institutions in the world are credited with initiating and confounding political change on the scale of the United States Supreme Court. The Court is uniquely positioned to enhance or inhibit political reform, enshrine or dismantle social inequalities, and expand or suppress individual rights. Yet despite claims of victory from judicial activists and complaints of undemocratic lawmaking from the Court's critics, numerous studies of the Court assert that it wields little real power. This book examines the nature of Supreme Court power by identifying conditions under which the Court is successful at altering the behavior of state and private actors. Employing a series of longitudinal studies that use quantitative measures of behavior outcomes across a wide range of issue areas, it develops and supports a new theory of Supreme Court power.

Holding the Accountability Problem Accountable: Response Mechanisms to Counter-Majoritarian Decisions

“…Similar to Lemieux and Watkins' (2009) charge of too narrow a definition of democracy, this paper argues that Bickel's definition of varying conditions. Scholars in this tradition examine the development of law (Silverstein 2009), litigation (Barnes 2011), rights (Burke and Barnes 2009), and court decisions (Hall 2011). The operating assumption of this body of work is, as Barnes and Burke put it, that "courts, like legislatures and executive branch agencies, are policymakers" (2015: 6).…”

"Awakening the Lay Evangelical Mind: Francis Schaeffer, James Houston, and the Christian Study Center Movement in North America"

“…3 (August 1977). 60 "Student Life," 1977. individuals like Charles Colson (1931Colson ( -2012 62 Colson decided to visit the LVSC after being moved by an audiocassette of Sproul's teaching on the holiness of God. 63 In the summer of 1978 Colson visited the study center, and called the study center "a lovely spot.…”

“…62 Celebrity teachers attracted over 150 students and also marked the big ambitions of Houston and the Students for Biblical Concerns who had helped Hiskey put the three-week even together. 63 As one Summer Study…”

“…For big events like the Rose Bowl Pederson would run print runs of 500,000, see Heinz,"Jesus in Berkeley," 298. 32 In 1976 [61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80]Eskridge,God's Forever Family,91,161,[256][257] 33 Feedback on Right On articles by both Francis Schaeffer and the Dutch art historian Hans Rookmaaker demonstrates that the paper was at least periodically read by individuals at both the Swiss and Dutch L'Abri. After his graduation from the University of California in 1968, Gill continued his ministry at the juvenile hall for three years while he taught history to high school and junior high students during the day and studied part-time for an MA in history at San Francisco State.…”

“…61 Observers of the publication began to notice "more articles which were an intellectual presentation and defense of the Christian faith," many of which followed "the kind of reasoning one might find at L'Abri or Wheaton College." 62 The paper's layout also shifted, from a loose amalgam of stories and graphics to a tighter layout by May, 1971. 63 The September 1971 edition provided the names of the Right On staff for the first time and listed Gill and Gallagher as co-editors.…”