Law Commons^™

Judicial Decisions As Legislation, Nancy C. Staudt, Jason O'Connor, Rene Lindstaedt

Nancy C Staudt

This article provides a new understanding of the Court-Congress dynamic. It responds to an important literature that for several decades now has misconstrued inter-branch relations as fraught with antagonism, hostility, and distrust. This unfriendly dynamic, it is argued, is evidenced by the repeated congressional overrides of Supreme Court cases. This claim, while true in some circumstances, ignores the friendly relations that exist between these two branches of government—relations that may be far more typical than scholars suspect. In this article, Professors Staudt, Lindstaedt, and O’Connor undertake a comprehensive study of congressional responses to Supreme Court cases and make a surprising …