Effects of selection regimes on state supreme court opinion writing

Abstract

BackgroundJudicial reformers have long debated the merits of different types of judicial selection methods.ObjectivesWhile many of the debates center on how selection methods impact decision making, I argue that selection methods may also affect how justices approach opinion writing.MethodsUsing opinion data from 1953 to 2014 in 21 states and opinion data from 1953 to 2019 in five states, this article investigates whether selection methods influence the clarity of the opinions.ResultsThe results show that selection methods do not have a substantive impact on opinion clarity. What does have an effect on opinion clarity is when justices are ideologically distant from their constituents. Opinion clarity increases when nonpartisan justices are ideologically distant from their constituents, indicating that justices may use written opinions to demonstrate support for public opinion on specific issues, even if they do not generally vote in line with public opinion. In contrast, opinions in states that changed from partisan to nonpartisan are less clear, indicating that when a court changes its selection method, opinion authors may purposefully obfuscate their views and rely on their incumbency advantage to hold on to power.ConclusionThe findings suggest that judicial selection methods only influence opinion clarity in certain contexts.