Judges Commons^™

The Endgame Of Court-Packing, Kyle Rozema, Daniel Epps, Adam Chilton, Maya Sen

Scholarship@WashULaw

At several points in history, politicians and commentators have proposed adding seats to the Supreme Court to accomplish partisan ends. We explore the incentives for a political party to initiate “court-packing” and what the Supreme Court would look like in a world where political parties engage in repeated partisan court- packing. To do so, we use an Agent-Based Model and different data sources to calibrate the behaviors of Presidents, Congresses, and Supreme Court justices. We then simulate the future composition of the Court in worlds with and without court-packing. The simulations suggest that a political party with an initial minority …

News Treatment Of The Supreme Court: Language Selection, Ideological Directions, And Public Support, Alexander Denison

Theses and Dissertations--Political Science

In an increasingly diverse media landscape, how much of the ideological trends seen in current news reporting affect coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court? This work examines two different aspects of the Court's activities, their decisions and the confirmation hearings of Court nominees, analyzing what factors, if any, lead to differences in coverage language. Finally, through the use of a survey experiment, I analyze whether these differences in language, in combination with positive symbolic imagery, affect attitudes toward the institution. This work provides a novel consideration of whether the Court is subject to the same ideological slant found in coverage …

The Return Of A Judicial Artifact? How The Supreme Court Could Examine The Question Of The Nondelegation Doctrine’S Place In Future Cases, Dalton Davis

Helms School of Government Undergraduate Law Review

No abstract provided.

Supreme Court Reform And American Democracy, Daniel Epps, Ganesh Sitaraman

Scholarship@WashULaw

In "How to Save the Supreme Court," we identified the legitimacy challenge facing the Court, traced it to a set of structural flaws, and proposed novel reforms. Little more than a year later, the conversation around Supreme Court reform has only grown louder and more urgent. In this Essay, we continue that conversation by engaging with critics of our approach. The current crisis of the Supreme Court is, we argue, inextricable from the question of the Supreme Court’s proper role in our democracy. For those interested in reform, there are three distinct strategies for ensuring the Supreme Court maintains its …

Oral Argument Tactics On The Supreme Court Bench: A Comparative Analysis Of Verbal Tools Used By Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, And Gorsuch, Corinne Cichowicz

Politics Honors Papers

Oral argument scholars like Adam Feldman have categorized the Supreme Court justices’ behavior during oral argument using the approach-based method, labeling each as one-sided, even-handed, or restrained. This approach is too narrowly constructed. Scholars sometimes categorize justices in terms of the tools they use, which include questions, hypotheticals, declarations, interruptions, tone of voice, and silence (Feldman 2018a). Neither of these methods alone produce a nuanced analysis of each justice’s actions during an individual case or across a Term. As the Court’s composition and dynamics are continuously changing, scholarship on oral argument needs to adapt to …

Open Secret: Why The Supreme Court Has Nothing To Fear From The Internet, Keith J. Bybee

Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics, and the Media at Syracuse University

The United States Supreme Court has an uneasy relationship with openness: it complies with some calls for transparency, drags its feet in response to others, and sometimes simply refuses to go along. I argue that the Court’s position is understandable given that the internet age of fluid information and openness has often been heralded in terms that are antithetical to the Court’s operations. Even so, I also argue the Court actually has little to fear from greater transparency. The understanding of the Court with the greatest delegitimizing potential is the understanding that the justices render decisions on the basis of …

Will The Real Elena Kagan Please Stand Up? Conflicting Public Images In The Supreme Court Confirmation Process, Keith J. Bybee

Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics, and the Media at Syracuse University

What images of judging did the Kagan confirmation process project?

My response to this question begins with a brief overview of existing public perceptions of the Supreme Court. I argue that a large portion of the public sees the justices as impartial arbiters who can be trusted to rule fairly. At the same time, a large portion of the public also sees the justices as political actors who are wrapped up in partisan disputes. Given these prevailing public views, we should expect the Kagan confirmation process to transmit contradictory images of judicial decisionmaking, with a portrait of judging as a …