Partisan Realignment, Unconstitutional State Policies, and the U.S. Supreme Court, 1837-1964

Gates, John B.

doi:10.2307/2111076

Cited by 25 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…The Court is to be governed by the Constitution and the law but not by public opinion. Scholars have, however, long suspected otherwise (Adamany 1973;Barnum 1985;Caldeira and Gibson 1992;Casper 1976;Dahl 1957;Funston 1975;Gates 1987;Marshall 1989;Mishler and Sheehan 1993). For the Court deals in public business and is made up in the main of men and women whose careers have led them to be sensitive to how the public wants its business done.…”

Section: The Supreme Courtmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dynamic Representation

Stimson,

Mackuen,

Erikson

1995

Am Polit Sci Rev

1,223

783

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¥f public opinion changes and then public policy responds, this is dynamic representation. Public I opinion is the global policy preference of the American electorate. Policy is a diverse set of acts of JL. elected and unelected officials. Two mechanisms of policy responsiveness are (1) elections change the government's political composition, which is then reflected in new policy and (2) policymakers calculate future (mainly electoral) implications of current public views and act accordingly (rational anticipation). We develop multiple indicators of policy activity for the House, Senate, presidency, and Supreme Court, then model policy liberalism as a joint function of the two mechanisms. For each institution separately, and also in a global analysis of "government as a whole," we find that policy responds dynamically to public opinion change. This responsiveness varies by institution, both in level and in mechanism, as would be expected from constitutional design.

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Section: The Supreme Courtmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We wish to thank Paul Kellstedt and Greg McAvoy, collaborators Variables for Tables 1-4 YEAR PRESIDENT HOUSE 195619571958195919601961196219631964196519661967196819691970197119721974197519771978191719801981198219831984198519861987 2. To be sure, the idea that policy reproduces itself is not merely a naive null model.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamic Representation

Stimson,

Mackuen,

Erikson

1995

Am Polit Sci Rev

1,223

783

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“…Presidents and Senators, who necessarily reflect majority preferences, are motivated to select justices with whom they share an ideological affinity (Segal and Spaeth 2002). As a result, the ideological orientation of the Court generally corresponds to the attitudes of the electorate (Dahl 1957; Funston 1975; see also Gates 1987).…”

Section: Public Opinion and The Courtmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Least Dangerous Branch Revisited: New Evidence on Supreme Court Responsiveness to Public Preferences

McGuire¹,

Stimson²

2004

The Journal of Politics

188

104

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With competing assumptions and alternative empirical models, scholars have come to rather different conclusions about the impact of public preferences on the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. Some have found the justices to be attentive to mass opinion, while others have judged it to be irrelevant. Across this divide, however, one assumption is widely shared; that is, political scientists generally agree upon how best to measure the Court's outputs. In this analysis, we employ an alternative estimate of the justices’ liberalism, one which we think better reflects the underlying ideological tenor of their policies. With data from 1953 to 1996, we compare time‐series models using different indicators of the Supreme Court's aggregate liberalism. Our results suggest that, in addition to being motivated by their own preferences, the justices are highly responsive to public mood, as well.

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“…The arrows indicate the "constitutional policy region" for the Court -the interval between P and MC toward which it is likely to issue a ruling changing the status quo policies and challenging the other branches. is what has lead politicians to take their disagreements to the Court, and hence the expansion of Court policy-making powers (Gates 1987;MacDonald and Rabinowitz 1987).…”

Section: [Figure 1 About Here]mentioning

confidence: 99%