Court Curbing via Attempt to Amend the Constitution: An Update of Congressional Attacks on the Supreme Court from 1955–1984

Nichols, Curt; Bridge, Dave; Carrington, Adam

doi:10.1080/0098261x.2013.875863

Cited by 10 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…For example, Congress' constitutional ability to regulate the federal judiciary could shatter and build courts. But less dramatically, Congress could restrict certain cases from ever reaching those courts (Rosenberg 1992;Clark 2011;Engel 2011;Nichols et al 2014). Moreover, the courts themselves have weak vetoes in this area-they cannot stop a bill that reduces jurisdiction.…”

Section: A Public Policy Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Donald Trump and Institutional Change Strategies

Cash

Bridge

2018

Laws

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This article integrates three fields of study: the "regime politics" paradigm in law and courts, the "institutional change" approach in public policy, and the "unilateral presidency" literature. In doing so, we show how law, politics, and public policy are inextricably linked, and that researchers can borrow assumptions, methods, and theories from a variety of fields. We use Donald Trump's early presidency to show how political actors (especially presidents) can use four different change strategies. In the case of Trump, we highlight: shifting of decision-making authority via insurrectionary displacement; the elimination of the individual mandate via subversive layering; a change in drone use policy via opportunistic conversion; and a gradual desensitization and change in school choice education policy via symbiotic drift. We conclude by offering lessons for all three literatures we incorporate, as well as a way forward for studying a presidential administration that many find difficult to analyze.

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Section: A Public Policy Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Donald Trump and Institutional Change Strategies

Cash

Bridge

2018

Laws

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“…I discuss three methods. First, other scholars have written about Article III's provision for Congress' ability to regulate the Court's appellate jurisdiction (Clark 2010;Engel 2011;Nichols, Bridge, and Carrington 2014). If judicial decisions upset majorities, then we might observe effective and/or more voluminous congressional court-curbing attacks.…”

Section: Inter-branch Response Mechanismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…I use communism (1956-1957), school prayer (1962), busing (1971), and abortion (1973), mainly because recent research points to "mature" New Deal counter-majoritarian examples (Nichols, Bridge, and Carrington 2014;see also Powe 2000;Friedman 2002). While "it is 3 extremely difficult to know as a matter of simple mathematics whether the Court was acting at any given time in a counter-majoritarian fashion" (Friedman 2002, 349), we still might expect some observable manifestations of counter-majoritarianism.…”

Section: Case Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Holding the Accountability Problem Accountable: Response Mechanisms to Counter-Majoritarian Decisions

Bridge

2016

ARP

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If the Supreme Court rules against the wishes of the majority, how can that majority respond? I argue that while federal judges will never stand for election, majorities can employ various response mechanisms to counter-majoritarian decisions. I draw out observable expectations for inter-branch, local, and electoral responses. I then test these expectations in cases from the “mature” New Deal—communism, school prayer, busing, and abortion—showing the range of effective results achieved by anti-Court majorities. Given these results, I conclude that there is no “accountability problem”; there is just a narrow definition of accountability.

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“…To date, the court curbing literature has focused on the Supreme Court (Nichols, Bridge, and Carrington 2014;Clark 2011;Handberg and Hill 1979;Nagel 1965), and to a lesser degree, state supreme courts (Leonard 2016). This literature has helped scholars to identify the incentives behind such proposals, regardless of their success or failure, and also provided a window into inter-branch relations between legislative and judicial institutions (Bridge and Nichols 2016).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%