Does Law Matter? Theory and Evidence from Single-Subject Adjudication

Abstract

Empirical studies have examined the effects of law and politics on judicial decision making, but many legal scholars are dissatisfied with how these studies account for law. This paper provides a novel survey technique for measuring law. I demonstrate this technique by examining judicial decision making in cases involving the single-subject rule. The rule limits ballot propositions to one "subject," a standard that vests judges with some discretion.Measures of law developed with the surveys strongly predict judges' votes in single-subject cases. Moving from the proposition in the sample with the lowest subject count to the one with the highest is associated with a 78-percentage-point increase in the likelihood of a judge finding a violation of the rule. Measures of ideology also predict judges' votes, especially when propositions are politically salient and when the law is indeterminate.

Aggressive Enforcement of the Single Subject Rule

“…35 Gilbert (2009), using somewhat different methods, reports a similar finding in a partially overlapping sample. He assigns each judge a numerical value for partisanship and assigns each initiative a numerical value for ideological orientation.…”

“…One limitation of our study is that we do not include controls for legal factors that might drive decisions (other than the number of words), and therefore we are not running a race between political and legal determinants of decisions (Gilbert, 2009 Gilbert (2009, p. 5): "I find that law trumps politics. Judges apply the rule more objectively that most observers expect, although politics does matter.…”

“…The most comprehensive and informative study of judicial behavior in single subject cases is Gilbert's (2009) Lowenstein (1983:954-55, footnotes omitted). Given Lowenstein's rejection of both the anti-logrolling and anti-voter confusion arguments, it is somewhat puzzling why he does not simply reject the single subject rule outright (as opposed to calling for its liberal interpretation).…”

“…Cooter and Gilbert (2010) propose a "separable preference" principle for applying the single subject rule that they argue can be applied neutrally. Gilbert (2009) argues that judges do in fact apply a neutral principle.…”

Constitutional Rights as Bribes

“…En un contexto legislativo, muchas constituciones estatales de Estados Unidos adoptan mecanismos diseñados para promover la división de este tipo: el ejemplo más notable es el uso de la regla en el poder ejecutivo); Gersen, pie de página 8, en 303-304 (2010) (describiendo el fenómeno de agrupar poderes constitucionales dentro de cada y el concepto de desagregarlos). de "temas-particulares" 250 , que requiere que las legislaturas dividan las políticas en distintos fragmentos de legislación 251 . Este tipo de reglas tienen una larga data: Michael Gilbert señala que, de hecho, se originaron en la Antigua Roma, en el año 98 a.C, como una respuesta a los intentos de los legisladores de aprobar medidas impopulares "atándolas a otras más populares" 252 .…”