Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-8zxtt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-09T16:12:51.176Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Packing the Courts

Ideological Proximity and Expansions to the Federal Judiciary from 1937 to 2012

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2022

Elli Menounou ,
Adam Feldman ,
Thora Giallouri  and
Jordan Carr Peterson
Elli Menounou
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
Adam Feldman
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
Thora Giallouri
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
Jordan Carr Peterson*
Affiliation:
Texas Christian University
*
Contact the corresponding author, Jordan Carr Peterson, at [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

What explains expansions to the federal judiciary? Whereas existing research focuses on unified government as an explanation, we argue ideological proximity between institutions involved in the expansion process more accurately predicts judicial expansions. We examine whether Congress chose to add seats to each federal district or circuit court annually from 1937 to 2012 and find expansions are more likely when (1) the ideological distance between chambers of Congress is smaller and (2) the ideological distance between Congress and individual district or circuit courts is greater. These findings suggest the administration of federal courts is influenced by the political concerns in another branch of government, raising important questions about judicial independence.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Law and Courts , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , Spring 2019 , pp. 81 - 106
Copyright
© 2018 by the Law and Courts Organized Section of the American Political Science Association. All rights reserved.

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.)

Footnotes

We would like to thank the editorial team and reviewers at the Journal of Law and Courts for their extremely valuable commentary and suggestions throughout the revision process. We would also like to acknowledge Christian Grose and Morgan Hazelton for reading the article and providing helpful feedback.

References

Abramowitz, Alan and Kyle, Saunders. 1998. “Ideological Realignment in the U.S. Electorate.” Journal of Politics 60:634–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abramowitz, Alan and Steven, Webster. 2016. “The Rise of Negative Partisanship and the Nationalization of U.S. Elections in the 21st Century.” Electoral Studies 41:12–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrow, Deborah, Zuk, Gary, and Gerard, Gryski. 1996. The Federal Judiciary and Institutional Change. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beck, Nathaniel and Jonathan, Katz. 1995. “What to Do (and Not to Do) with Time-Series Cross-Section Data.” American Political Science Review 89 (3): 634–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binder, Sarah and Forrest, Maltzman. 2002. “Senatorial Delay in Confirming Federal Judges, 1947–1998.” American Journal of Political Science 46 (1): 190–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binder, Sarah 2009. Advice and Dissent: The Struggle to Shape the Federal Judiciary. Washington, DC: Brookings.Google Scholar
Bond, J. R. 1980. “The Politics of Court Structure: The Addition of New Federal Judges, 1949–1978.” Law and Policy 2:181–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, Christina. 2015. “Federal District Court Judge Ideology Data.” http://cLboyd.net/ideology.html.Google Scholar
Cameron, Charles, Cover, Albert, and Jeffrey, Segal. 1990. “Senate Voting on Supreme Court Nominees: A Neo-Institutional Model.” American Political Science Review 84 (2): 525–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Claggett, William, Flanigan, William, and Nancy, Zingale. 1984. “Nationalization of the American Electorate.” American Political Science Review 78 (1): 77–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corley, Pamela C. 2006. “Avoiding Advice and Consent: Recess Appointments and Presidential Power.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 36:670–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, Gary W., and Mathew, D. McCubbins. 2005. Setting the Agenda: Responsible Party Government in the U.S. House of Representatives. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deering, Christopher and Steven, Smith. 1997. Committees in Congress. Washington, DC: CQ Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Figueiredo, John Gryski, Gerald Tiller, Emerson and Zuk, Gary 2000. “Congress and the Political Expansion of the U.S. District Courts.” American Law Economic Review 2 (1): 107–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Figueiredo, John and Tiller, Emerson 1996. “Congressional Control of the Courts: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Expansion of the Federal Judiciary.” Journal of Law and Economics 39 (2): 435–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denzau, Arthur and Robert, Mackay. 1983. “Gatekeeping and Monopoly Power of Committees: An Analysis of Sincere and Sophisticated Behavior.” American Journal of Political Science 27 (4): 740–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, Lee and Jack, Knight. 1998. The Choices Justices Make. Washington, DC: CQ Press.Google Scholar
Epstein, Lee, Martin, Andrew, Jeffrey, Segal., and Chad, Westerland. 2007. “The Judicial Common Space.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 23:303–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, Lee and Jeffrey, Segal. 2005. Advice and Consent: The Politics of Judicial Appointments. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Feinberg, Wilfred. 1990. “Senior Judges: A National Resource.” Brooklyn Law Review 56 (2): 409–18.Google Scholar
Frymer, Paul, Kim, Thomas, and Terri, Bimes. 1997. “Party Elites, Ideological Voters, and Divided Party Government.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 22 (2): 195–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giles, Michael, Hettinger, Virginia, and Todd, Peppers. 2001. “Picking Federal Judges: A Note on Policy and Partisan Selection Agendas.” Political Research Quarterly 54 (3): 623–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gill, Rebecca D. 2014. “Implicit Bias in Judicial Performance Evaluations: We Must Do Better Than This.” Justice System Journal 35:271–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Groseclose, Tim. 1994. “Testing Committee Composition Hypotheses for the U.S. Congress.” Journal of Politics 56 (2): 440–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grossback, Lawrence, Nicholson-Crotty, Sean, and David, Peterson. 2004. “Ideology and Learning in Policy Diffusion.” American Politics Research 32 (5): 521–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krehbiel, Keith. 1998. Pivotal Politics: A Theory of U.S. Lawmaking. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krehbiel, Keith, Shepsle, Kenneth, and Barry, Weingast. 1987. “Why Are Congressional Committees Powerful?” American Political Science Review 81 (3): 929–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Law, David S. 2005. “Appointing Federal Judges: The President, the Senate, and the Prisoner’s Dilemma.” Cardozo Law Review 26 (2): 479–523.Google Scholar
Marcus, Maria. 1978. “Judicial Overload: The Reasons and the Remedies.” Buffalo Law Review 28:111–41.Google Scholar
Mayhew, David R. 1974. Congress: The Electoral Connection. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
McCree, Wade. 1981. “Bureaucratic Justice: An Early Warning.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 129:777–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McNollgast, . 1994. “Legislative Intent: The Use of Positive Political Theory in Statutory Interpretation.” Law and Contemporary Problems 57:3–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McNollgast, 1995. “Politics and the Courts: A Positive Theory of Judicial Doctrine and the Rule of Law.” Southern California Law Review 68:1631–84.Google Scholar
Perkins, Lynette. 1980. “Influences of Members’ Goals on Their Committee Behavior: The U.S. House Judiciary Committee.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 5 (3): 373–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, Harry. 1978. “The Expansion of Federal Jurisdiction and the Crisis in the Courts.” Vanderbilt Law Review 31:17–26.Google Scholar
Poole, Keith and Steven, Daniels. 1985. “Ideology, Party, and Voting in the U.S. Congress, 1959–1980.” American Political Science Review 79 (2): 373–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poole, Keith and Howard, Rosenthal. 1991. “Patterns of Congressional Voting.” American Journal of Political Science 35 (1): 228–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saeki, Manabu. 2009. “Gridlock in the Government of the United States: Influence of Divided Government and Veto Players.” British Journal of Political Science 39:587–607.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scully, Roger and Samuel, Patterson. 2001. “Ideology, Partisanship, and Decision-Making in a Contemporary American Legislature.” Party Politics 7 (2): 131–a55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shepsle, Kenneth. 1979. “Institutional Arrangements and Equilibrium in Multidimensional Voting Models.” American Journal of Political Science 23 (1): 27–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spiller, Pablo and Matthew, Spitzer. 1992. “Judicial Choice of Legal Doctrines.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 8:8–46.Google Scholar
Sullivan, John and Daniel, Richard Minns. 1976. “Ideological Distance between Candidates: An Empirical Examination.” American Journal of Political Science 20 (3): 439–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Theriault, Sean. 2008. Party Polarization in Congress. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsebelis, George. 2002. Veto Players: How Political Institutions Work. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wheeler, Russell. 1988. “Empirical Research and the Politics of Judicial Administration: Creating the Federal Judicial Center.” Law and Contemporary Problems 51 (3): 31–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yoon, Albert. 2005. “As You Like It: Senior Federal Judges and the Political Economy of Judicial Tenure.” Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 2 (3): 495–549.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zuk, Gary, Gryski, Gerard S., and Deborah, J. Barrow. 1993. “Partisan Transformation of the Federal Judiciary, 1969–1992.” American Politics Research 21 (4): 439–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar