Congressional Decision Making and the Separation of Powers

Martin, Andrew D.

doi:10.1017/s0003055401002180

Cited by 56 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…As Martin has argued, MCs are constrained by the separation of powers and thus to pursue re-election and other goals, they are not as concerned with particular roll call votes as they are with the ultimate policy outcome. 9 With the 2003 PBA Ban Act, senators acted upon their oath to defend the constitution by clashing with each other to define the meaning of the constitution. The idea of Congress acting to supplement the Supreme Court in considering constitutional issues is wellestablished; 10 however, the case of the federal ban of 2003 provides an excellent example of this idea put into practice.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Congressional Debate on Partial-Birth Abortion: Constitutional Gravitas and Moral Passion

Schonhardt-Bailey

2008

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

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I employ automated content analysis to measure the dimensionality of Senate debates on the 2003 Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and compare these results with the final vote. The underlying verbal conflict leading up to the final roll call vote contains two important dimensions: (1) an emotive battle over the abortion procedure itself, and (2) the battle over the constitutionality of the bill. Surprisingly, senators appear not to have voted along the first dimension of the verbal conflict, but rather along the second dimension. The analysis of the deliberations of senators not only enables us to understand the complexity of the arguments that is not captured in the vote, but it also uncovers (and measures empirically) the strategies employed by legislators to shape the relevant lines of conflict, and ultimately, the final content of the bill.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Congressional Debate on Partial-Birth Abortion: Constitutional Gravitas and Moral Passion

Schonhardt-Bailey

2008

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

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“…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.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, policy preferences influence the budget allocated to the Supreme Court, with Congress using the budget to signal its approval or disapproval of the Court's decisions (Toma 1991). Additionally, Martin (2001) shows that the House and Senate consider the political preferences of both the other chamber and the Supreme Court when voting on civil rights legislation. However, research has not uncovered a link between legislative preferences and the passage of court-curbing bills (Chutkow 2008;Curry 2007).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, only a handful of studies empirically examine legislative anticipation of High Court review, and none of them focuses on congressional overrides. Martin (2001) shows that House and Senate roll call votes in the area of civil rights were strategic, with members anticipating possible reaction by the Supreme Court to legislation. Shipan (1997) provides a formal model, accompanied by an illuminating case study, demonstrating that Congress strategically timed the passage of legislation concerning broadcast regulation in anticipation of how the Court would react.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…This result speaks to the relative power of the two branches, at least with respect to long-term influence over policy. If Congress does not behave strategically, essentially acting on position-taking motives (see Arnold 1990;Martin 2001;Mayhew 1974), but the Court is strategic, taking into account the ultimate location of policy that results from the SOP (Clark 2011;Epstein and Knight 1998), then the Court may have an advantage when it comes to the ultimate effect each institution has on policy outcomes. Third, we show that Congress acts on its preferences regardless of whether the Court uses statutory or constitutional interpretation.…”

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confidence: 99%

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

Uribe¹,

Spriggs

Hansford³

2014

Law Soc Rev

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Studies of Court–Congress relations assume that Congress overrides Court decisions based on legislative preferences, but no empirical evidence supports this claim. Our first goal is to show that Congress is more likely to pass override legislation the further ideologically removed a decision is from pivotal legislative actors. Second, we seek to determine whether Congress rationally anticipates Court rejection of override legislation, avoiding legislation when the current Court is likely to strike it down. Third, most studies argue that Congress only overrides statutory decisions. We contend that Congress has an incentive to override all Court decisions with which it disagrees, regardless of their legal basis. Using data on congressional overrides of Supreme Court decisions between 1946 and 1990, we show that Congress overrides Court decisions with which it ideologically disagrees, is not less likely to override when it anticipates that the Court will reject override legislation, and acts on preferences regardless of the legal basis of a decision. We therefore empirically substantiate a core part of separation‐of‐powers models of Court–Congress relations, as well as speak to the relative power of Congress and the Court on the ultimate content of policy.

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Judicial Independence

Clark¹

2015

Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences

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For analytic clarity, judicial independence is best thought of as a concept that captures a variety of features of a judicial system. One common, and useful, approach is to associate judicial independence with the ability of judges to, in practice, make decisions the outcomes of which are not dictated by extrajudicial pressures. In this spirit, research on judicial independence has examined a number of topics, two of which are (i) the origins and determinants of political support for the judiciary and (ii) the consequences of maintaining judicial independence for economic performance. Original research on political support for the judiciary focused on how a system of separation of powers can constrain judicial independence. Current research is turning the question around, examining the role courts play as a component of a system in which policy is made collectively by political institutions. Research on the relationship between judicial independence and economic performance originally examined whether greater judicial independence is associated with higher levels of economic growth. Current research is expanding the focus to evaluate the conditions under which independent courts reinforce the stability of democratic government. As research on judicial independence moves forward, it should focus on further conceptual clarification, the study of independent courts as complements to other parts of a system of governance (rather than competitors to policy makers), and leveraging current advances for theoretically driven measurement of these concepts.

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Congressional Decision Making and the Separation of Powers

Cited by 56 publications

References 40 publications

The Congressional Debate on Partial-Birth Abortion: Constitutional Gravitas and Moral Passion

The Congressional Debate on Partial-Birth Abortion: Constitutional Gravitas and Moral Passion

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

Judicial Independence

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