This research examines what factors are likely to cause the Congress to attempt to reverse Supreme Court decisions that hold federal laws unconstitutional during the Warren, Burger, and early years of the Rehnquist courts. First, we outline a general theory of congressional motivation to reverse Supreme Court decisions that looks to both electoral considerations and the need to safeguard congressional power as the primary motivating factors. Using a data set consisting of 65 Court decisions that reversed all or part of some federal statute(s), we test our hypotheses using a probit model to predict when the Congress will take counteraction. We find that the electoral considerations of public opinion and interest group pressure are likely to lead to a congressional response, while the institutional considerations of court unanimity and the age of the legislation struck down are also important. The congress, however, is most likely not to take any decision reversal action.
To understand why Congress is prompted to react to Supreme Court federal statutory construction decisions, we examine two different explanations of this phenomenon. The first focuses on the role that political actors, such as the president, the public, and interest groups, and salient issues play in the legislative process. The second explanation is based on the work of scholars who argue that ideological differences between the Supreme Court and Congress are important in provoking legislative reactions to Court rulings. The results of our analysis indicate that public opinion, salient cases, and Court invitations to Congress to revise its rulings are statistically significant predictors of some minimal level of congressional reaction, whereas the position of the president and partisan control of government help determine when the Congress is able to pass decision modification legislation. Ideological differences between the High Court and congressional committees and the full chambers are generally statistically insignificant factors.The study of the interactions between the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Congress has undergone a profound transformation. Whereas once many scholars argued that the Supreme Court was final in its decisions or at least perceived to be by the public, Congress, and other political actors (
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