Supreme Court Decisions

About: Supreme Court Decisions is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1804 publications have been published within this topic receiving 17066 citations.

Campaign finance reform : a sourcebook

Abstract: This volume pulls together key documentsstatutes, court decisions, FEC advisory opinions, draft legislationand scholarly articles that are essential references for any informed discussion of campaign finance reform. Each chapter includes a set of reprinted materials preceded by an explanation of the relevant issues by the editors. Topics include the history of federal statutes on campaign finance; major Supreme Court decisions; the constitutional contours of the current debate; a roadmap to the present rules of the game; political action committees; national parties; hard and soft money; express and issue advocacy; enforcing campaign finance law; and recent innovations and proposals.The volume is designed to help reformers and interested citizens understand how current campaign finance practices have evolved from previous decisions made by legislative, judicial, and executive bodies and what might be entailed in moving the system in a desired direction.Each of the editors has extensive practical experience in the field of campaign finance."

PUBLIC OPINION REACTION TO REPEATED EVENTS: Citizen Response to Multiple Supreme Court Abortion Decisions

Abstract: While numerous works explores how single events or political actions affect public opinion, almost no research explores how this effect evolves with repeated actions. The Conditional Response Model holds that while elite actors can influence and polarize the public when they first act on an issue, subsequent action will not have this same effect. We challenge this model based on its depiction of psychological models of attitude formation and change. Instead of focusing on the number of times an actor has addressed an issue, we argue that the state of public opinion is the key to determining how the public will react to multiple elite actions over a long timeframe. We examine how the public reacted to multiple Supreme Court decisions on abortion. Our results suggest that the Conditional Response Model does a poor job of depicting public opinion and that actors are not limited in their influence by the number of previous actions on an issue.

Law, the State, and the Spatial Integration of the United States

Abstract: The rules and standards of law both regulate behavior (individual or group) and provide the context within which behavior occurs. By means of a hermeneutic framework, the spatial integration of the United States economy is interpreted in terms of the structure and application of laws adjudicated by the Supreme Court. Emphasis is placed, in particular, upon the substantive aspects of law which have provided the conditions for national economic growth. It is argued that spatial integration can be derived as an outcome from earlier debates between competing classes of the revolutionary era and from an agreement between these classes that the basic unit of American society would be the individual. However, it is also shown that control of the state by the ruling class also enabled the implementation of a policy of spatial integration as part of an overall agenda of national economic development. Evidence in support of this interpretation is drawn from Supreme Court decisions relating, for example, to the Comm...

Strategic Institutional Effects on Supreme Court Decisionmaking

Abstract: INTRODUCTION The academic study of judicial decisionmaking has grown in recent years and has consequently become more elaborate. Careful consideration of judicial decisionmaking would seem fundamental to any legal analysis, which depends upon judges to interpret, apply, and enforce the law. While political scientists have long investigated such decisionmaking, legal research has too frequently retreated to a comfortable but unsupported assumption that judges have simply followed the law when deciding cases. Reliance on this assumption, which converts judges into either saints or automatons, cannot be sustained. The model of judicial decisionmaking requires a more refined investigation. This Article presents an analysis of the institutional context of judicial decisionmaking and of how that context affects decisions. The first Part discusses the conventional models of decisionmaking. First, we review the "naive legal model," the traditional formalist view of judging. Second, we consider the "naive political model" propounded by some political scientists, which maintains that judges do nothing more than decide cases according to their ideological preferences. Third, we consider a more elaborate model, in which judges attend to the preferences of other institutions, such as Congress and the Presidency, strategically altering their decisions in light of those external preferences. The second Part analyzes how other institutions might affect Supreme Court decisionmaking. Legal research has focused primarily on the legislature's ability to overturn the statutory interpretation decisions of the courts. We suggest that this, in fact, is probably not a significant factor in judicial decisionmaking. However, the courts are more likely to be responsive to other sources of influence, ranging from threats of impeachment to controls on jurisdiction to budgetary pressures to reluctance to implement the spirit or the letter of the courts' opinions. Cumulatively, these influences are potentially significant and may substantially impact judicial decisionmaking. In the third Part, we present an empirical test that focuses on the institutional component of the Supreme Court's decisionmaking. We present an analysis of thousands of Supreme Court votes and try to identify a political and a legal basis for the decisionmaking. We also identify the presence of judicial deference to other institutions and the extent to which this deference appears to be strategic. We conclude that there is clear evidence of strategic judicial deference to other institutions but that such a response does not overwhelm the decisionmaking process, which considers a blend of ideological and legal factors as well. No single simple model accurately explains the process of Supreme Court decisions. I. MODELS OF JUDICIAL DECISIONMAKING The judicial decisionmaking process has not been much explored. It cannot be so explored unless one confronts the issue of what the objectives of judges are. The "judicial maximand" differs from that of ordinary market actors because judges cannot readily enhance their income via the quantity or quality of the job they do. Sundry factors doubtless affect judges, including the desire not to be overworked.1 When judges do make decisions, though, we need a model of why they decide as they do. This Part of our Article explores three distinct models of judicial decisionmaking. First we consider the naive legal model, which might also be called "neutralist" decisionmaking. This model has judges faithfully applying legal principles, such as precedent, in order to reach a decision. Legal scholars often assume that judges are using this approach, but the assumption is seldom supported with evidence. A second model is the naive political model, which is sometimes called the attitudinal model. This model is commonly employed in political science and holds that judges generally make decisions that accord with their ideological or political preferences. …

The Fourth Estate and the Constitution: Freedom of the Press in America

Abstract: In 1964 the Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision in New York Times v. Sullivan guaranteeing constitutional protection for caustic criticism of public officials, thus forging the modern law of freedom of the press. Since then, the Court has decided case after case affecting the rights and restrictions of the press, yet little has ben written about these developments as they pertain to the Fourth Estate. Lucas Powe's essential book now fills this gap. Lucas A. Powe, Jr., a legal scholar specializing in media and the law, goes back to the framing of the First Amendment and chronicles the two main traditions of interpreting freedom of the press to illuminate the issues that today ignite controversy: How can a balance be achieved among reputation, uninhibited discussion, and media power? Under what circumstance can the government seek to protect national security by enjoining the press rather than attempting the difficult task of convincing a jury that publication was a criminal offense? What rights can the press properly claim to protect confidential sources or to demand access to information otherwise barred to the public?And, as the media grow larger and larger, can the government attempt to limit their power by limiting their size? Writing for the concerned layperson and student of both journalism and jurisprudence, Powe synthesizes law, history, and theory to explain and justify full protection of the editorial choices of the press. The Fourth Estate and the Constitution not only captures the sweep of history of Supreme Court decisions on the press, but also provides a timely restatement of the traditional view of freedom of the press at a time when liberty is increasingly called into question.