Showing papers by "Donald R. Songer published in 1979"

Concern for Policy Outputs as a Cue for Supreme Court Decisions on Certiorari

Abstract: IN CONTRAST TO the large and growing literature on Supreme Court decision-making in cases decided with full opinions, relatively little has been written about the prior court decisions to grant or deny review on petitions for certiorari. Such a shortcoming may be due in part to the difficulty in obtaining the relevant empirical facts about the process of decision-making which the Supreme Court's "doctrine of secrecy" produces. This lack of attention should not, however, be allowed to obscure the obvious policy significance of these decisions. In the past about 75 percent of all cases that went to oral argument reached the Supreme Court through petitions for certiorari.' Certiorari decisions are thus a crucial part of the gatekeeping processes by which the justices determine which issues will be the subjects of Court output. The justices on the Supreme Court have done little to aid scholars who seek to understand the process. Several studies have suggested that the official court criteria, contained in Rule 19, shed little light

The relevance of policy values for the confirmation of supreme court nominees

Abstract: The confirmation votes on the fourteen most controversial Supreme Court nominees of the twentieth century were analyzed. The data supported the conclusion that Senate opposition to Supreme Court nominees is due primarily to a predicted dissatisfaction with the policy-relevant voting of the nominee after confirmation. The policy position of senators supporting confirmation was found to be significantly different from the policy position of senators opposing confirmation even after controls were introduced for the political party and ethical standards position of senators.