Examining State of the Judiciary Addresses: A Research Note

Wilhelm, Teena; Vining, Richard L.; Boldt, Ethan D.; Trochesset, Allison

doi:10.1080/0098261x.2019.1598902

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…The responsibilities associated with this aspect of the job are substantial and time-consuming. They include the development and implementation of judicial reform efforts, interbranch communications, public education, and oversight of the state court system (Raftery 2017;Wilhelm et al 2019;2020). While court administrators and staff typically assist court leaders to accomplish these activities (Linhares 2012), chief justices still report spending most of their time on administrative tasks (Smith and Feldman 2001).…”

Section: Chief Justices In the American Statesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chief Justice Selection Rules and Judicial Ideology

Wilhelm

Vining

Hughes

2023

State Politics Policy Q.

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We examine how institutional selection procedures affect the ideology of state supreme court chief justices. We argue that institutional selection methods empower those charged with choosing chief justices to select court leaders who reflect their own preferences, and we test this theory using data from all 50 American states from 1970 to 2017. Our results show that states that use popular elections to select chief justices tend to produce court leaders whose preferences reflect the electorate, and states that use commission-assisted elite appointment tend to produce chief justices whose preferences mirror those of political elites. While we find that peer election systems produce leaders with preferences similar to median court preferences, court preferences are also associated with other methods of chief justice selection.

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Section: Chief Justices In the American Statesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chief Justice Selection Rules and Judicial Ideology

Wilhelm

Vining

Hughes

2023

State Politics Policy Q.

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“…Outside of court, chief justices have administrative responsibilities and serve as judicial spokespersons. State (Wilhelm et al 2019) and federal (Vining and Wilhelm 2012) chief justices produce state of the judiciary addresses emphasizing similar issues, including judgeships and budgets. Chief justices also propose reforms on topics such as caseload, judicial diversification, court resources for those with limited English language proficiency, rural access, judicial independence, pro se litigation, public defender funding, specialized court creation, judicial training, and performance standards (see, for example, Boughton 2019;Buffon 2019;Pitt 2020;Thomas 2020;Young 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Selecting Chief Justices by Peer Vote

Fife

Goelzhauser

Loertscher

2021

State Politics Policy Q.

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What characteristics do state supreme court justices prioritize when choosing leaders? At the federal level, collegial court leaders are appointed or rotated by seniority. A plurality of states permit peer-vote selection, but the consequences of employing this mechanism are not well known. We develop a theory of chief justice selection emphasizing experience, bias, and politics. Leveraging within-contest variation and more than a half century’s worth of original contest data, we find that chief justice peer votes often default to seniority rotation. Ideological divergence from the court median, governor, and legislature is largely unassociated with selection. Justices who dissent more than their peers are, however, disadvantaged. We find no evidence of discrimination against women or people of color. The results have implications for policy debates about political leader selection.

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Beyond Consensus: Gender, Chief Justices, and Leadership on State Supreme Courts

Norris

2021

Journal of Women, Politics & Policy

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Examining State of the Judiciary Addresses: A Research Note

Cited by 3 publications

References 8 publications

Chief Justice Selection Rules and Judicial Ideology

Chief Justice Selection Rules and Judicial Ideology

Selecting Chief Justices by Peer Vote

Beyond Consensus: Gender, Chief Justices, and Leadership on State Supreme Courts

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