Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T05:28:21.883Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Issue Fluidity on the U.S. Supreme Court

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Kevin T. McGuire  and
Barbara Palmer
Kevin T. McGuire
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Barbara Palmer
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In making decisions on the merits, the members of the U.S. Supreme Court are often willing to provide authoritative answers to questions that have not been asked and to disregard issues that the parties have presented. What accounts for these forms of issue fluidity? Analyzing data from the 1988 term of the Court, we find that issue transformation is quite common, occurring in roughly half of the cases on the plenary agenda. We propose models of both issue discovery and issue suppression that, while successful in explaining how the justices select issues, suggest that these two forms of fluidity result from largely different influences.

Type
Research Notes
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 89 , Issue 3 , September 1995 , pp. 691 - 702
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aldrich, John H., and Nelson, Forrest D.. 1984. Linear Probability, Logit and Probit Models. Beverly Hills: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Armstrong, Virginia, and Johnson, Charles A.. 1982. “Certiorari Dedsion Making by the Warren and Burger Courts: Is Cue Theory Time Bound?” Polity 15:141–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority. 1936. 297 U.S. 288.Google Scholar
Baker, Stewart A. 1984. “A Practical Guide to Certiorari.” Catholic University Law Review 33:611–32.Google Scholar
Baum, Lawrence. 1977. “Policy Goals in Judicial Gate-Keeping: A Proximity Model of Discretionary Jurisdiction.” American Journal of Political Science 21:13–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brenner, Saul, and Spaeth, Harold J.. 1988. “Majority Opinion Assignments and the Maintenance of the Original Coalition on the Warren Court.” American Journal of Political Science 32:72–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buckley v. Valeo. 1976. 424 U.S. 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caldeira, Gregory A. 1981. “The United States Supreme Court and Criminal Cases, 1935–1976: Alternative Models of Agenda Building.” British Journal of Political Science 11:449–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caldeira, Gregory A. 1983. “On the Reputation of State Supreme Courts.” Political Behavior 5:83–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caldeira, Gregory A., and Wright, John R.. 1988. ‘Organized Interests and Agenda Setting in the U.S. Supreme Court.” American Political Science Review 82:1109–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caldeira, Gregory A., and Wright, John R.. 1990. “The Discuss List: Agenda Building in the Supreme Court.” Law and Society Review 24:807–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Capital Cities Cable v. Crisp. 1984. 467 U.S. 691.Google Scholar
Caplan, Lincoln. 1987. The Tenth Justice. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Cortner, Richard. 1981. The Supreme Court and the Second Bill of Rights. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Elder, Glen H. Jr., Pavalko, Eliza K., and Clipp, Elizabeth C.. 1993. Working with Archival Data. Beverly Hills: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ennis, Bruce J. 1984. “Effective Amicus Briefs.” Catholic University Law Review 33:603–09.Google Scholar
Epstein, Lee. 1993. “Interest Group Litigation during the Rehnquist Era.” Journal of Law and Politics 9:639–717.Google Scholar
Epstein, Lee, and Kobylka, Joseph F.. 1992. The Supreme Court and Legal Change: Abortion and the Death Penalty. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Holmes, Oliver Wendall Jr., 1920. Collected Legal Papers. New York: Harcourt, Brace, & Howe.Google Scholar
Howard, J. Woodford Jr., 1968. “On the Fluidity of Judicial Choice.” American Political Science Review 62:43–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lamb, Charles M. 1976. “Judicial Policy-making and Information Flow to the Supreme Court.” Vanderbilt Law Review 29:45–124.Google Scholar
Lamb, Charles M. 1982. “Judicial Restraint on the Supreme Court.” In Supreme Court Activism and Restraint, ed. Halpern, Stephen C. and Lamb, Charles M.. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Lawrence, Susan E. 1990. The Poor in Court: The Legal Services Program and Supreme Court Decision Making. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levi, Edward H. 1949. An Introduction to Legal Reasoning. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lorance v. AT&T. 1989. 490 U.S. 900.Google Scholar
Mapp v. Ohio. 1961. 367 U.S. 643.Google Scholar
March, James G., and Simon, Herbert A.. 1958. Organizations. New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Marvell, Thomas B. 1978. Appellate Courts and Lawyers: Information Gathering in the Adversary System. Westport, CT: Greenwood.Google Scholar
Murphy, Walter F. 1964. Elements of Judicial Strategy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Neuborne, Burt. 1977. “The Myth of Parity.” Harvard Law Review 90:1065–1131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pacelle, Richard L. Jr., 1991. The Transformation of the Supreme Court's Agenda: From the New Deal to the Reagan Administration. Boulder: Westview.Google Scholar
Perry, H. W. Jr., 1991. Deciding To Decide: Agenda Setting in the United States Supreme Court. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rathjen, Gregory J., and Spaeth, Harold J.. 1979. “Access to the Federal Courts: An Analysis of the Burger Court Policy Making.” American Journal of Political Science 23:360–382.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rehnquist, William H. 1987. The Supreme Court: How It Was, How It Is. New York: Morrow.Google Scholar
Richardson, Richard J., and Vines, Kenneth N.. 1970. The Politics of Federal Courts: Lower Courts in the United States. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Salokar, Rebecca Mae. 1992. The Solicitor General: The Politics of Law. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Schlozman, Kay L., and Tierney, John T.. 1986. Organized Interests and American Democracy. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Schneckloth v. Bustamonte. 1973. 412 U.S. 218.Google Scholar
Segal, Jeffrey A., and Reedy, Cheryl D.. 1988. “The Supreme Court and Sex Discrimination: The Role of the Solicitor General.” Western Political Quarterly 41:553–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Segal, Jeffrey A., and Spaeth, Harold J.. 1993. The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Springer, James van R. 1984. “Some Suggestions on Preparing Briefs on the Merits in the Supreme Court of the United States.” Catholic University Law Review 33:593–602.Google Scholar
Stern, Robert H., Gressman, Eugene, and Shapiro, Stephen M.. 1986. Supreme Court Practice. 6th ed.Washington: Bureau of National Affairs.Google Scholar
Ulmer, S. Sidney. 1979. “Researching the Supreme Court in a Democratic Pluralist System: Some Thoughts on New Directions.” Law and Policy Quarterly 1:53–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ulmer, S. Sidney. 1982. “Issue Fluidity in the U.S. Supreme Court: A Conceptual Analysis.” In Supreme Court Activism and Restraint, ed. Halpern, Stephen C. and Lamb, Charles M.. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Ulmer, S. Sidney. 1984. “The Supreme Court's Certiorari Decisions: Conflict as a Predictive Variable.” American Political Science Review 78:901–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs. 1988–1989. Washington: Congressional Information Service.Google Scholar
Webster v. Reproductive Health Services. 1989. 492 U.S. 490.Google Scholar
Yee v. Escondido. 1992. 118 L.Ed. 2d. 153.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.