An Analysis of Policy-Based Congressional Responses to the U.S. Supreme Court's Constitutional Decisions

Abstract

While Congress can attempt to overrule constitutional decisions of the Supreme Court by initiating the constitutional amendment process, an amendment is rarely a practicable option. Instead, Congress regularly tries to modify the impact of constitutional decisions with ordinary legislation. I analyze policy‐based responses to the Supreme Court's constitutional decisions that were initiated in Congress between 1995 and 2010. For each responsive proposal, I consider the relationship between the proposed legislation and the Court's legal holding and the relationship between the proposal and the public policy associated with the Court's decision. I find that Congress enjoys considerable success in reversing the policy impacts of the Court's decisions but is limited in its ability to overcome the Court's legal rules.

The Influence of Congressional Preferences on Legislative Overrides of Supreme Court Decisions

“…Congress has clear authority to pass legislative overrides of the latter variety, even given the Court's assertion that it is the final arbiter of the Constitution. Finally, previous research shows that Congress does legislatively override constitutional decisions (Blackstone 2013;Dahl 1957;Fisher 1998;Ignagni and Meernik 1994;Ignagni 1995, 1997). 8 Our data reveal that constitutional cases account for roughly 16 percent of the legislative overrides of Supreme Court decisions from 1946 to 1990.…”

“…It follows that Congress has an incentive to statutorily alter constitutional decisions that it dislikes. Second, a legislative override may not directly challenge the legal policy in a decision-the Court's interpretation of the Constitution-but rather statutorily alter the public policy that was challenged in the case (e.g., Blackstone 2013;Pickerill 2004;Sala and Spriggs 2004). Congress has clear authority to pass legislative overrides of the latter variety, even given the Court's assertion that it is the final arbiter of the Constitution.…”

“…Meernik and Ignagni (1997) indicate that Congress passed override legislation in response to 41 out of 569 constitutional Court decisions (decisions that struck a law as unconstitutional) decided from 1954 to 1990. Most recently, Blackstone (2013) catalogues all congressional overrides of the Court's constitutional decisions from 1995-2010. She found 111 bills that sought to override 43 constitutional decisions, and 18 of those bills were passed into law.…”

“…One SOP relationship garnering substantial attention concerns the interactions between the U.S. Congress and Supreme Court. Scholars have examined the dealings between these institutions in multiple ways, including the extent to which Congress influences Supreme Court decisions (e.g., Clark 2011;Gely and Spiller 1990;Hansford and Damore 2000;Harvey and Friedman 2009;Owens 2010;Sala and Spriggs 2004;Segal 1997;Spiller and Gely 1992), whether the Court constrains congressional decisionmaking (e.g., Martin 2001), and the circumstances under which Congress legislatively overrides Supreme Court decisions (e.g., Blackstone 2013;Eskridge 1991a;Hausegger and Baum 1999;Hettinger and Zorn 2005;Ignagni and Meernik 1994;Ignagni, Meernik, and King 1998). Collectively, the literature uncovers a rich and complex interdependency between these two important American political institutions.…”

“…We are not the first scholars to recognize that Congress legislatively overrides constitutional decisions (e.g., Blackstone 2013;Dahl 1957;Fisher 1998;Meernik and Ignagni 1997;Segal, Westerland, and Lindquist 2011). As Epstein, Knight, and Martin (2001: 599) write: "In addition, and this is worthy of emphasis, however much the Justices have stressed in recent cases they are the final arbiters of the Constitution, Congress has attempted to respond to constitutional decisions in the form of ordinary legislation."…”