Jurisprudence Commons^™

After The Override: An Empirical Analysis Of Shadow Precedent, Brian Broughman, Deborah A. Widiss

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Congressional overrides of prior judicial interpretations of statutory language are typically defined as equivalent to judicial overrulings, and they are presumed to play a central role in maintaining legislative supremacy. Our study is the first to empirically test these assumptions. Using a differences-in-differences research design, we find that citation levels decrease far less after legislative overrides than after judicial overrulings. This pattern holds true even when controlling for depth of the superseding event or considering only the specific proposition that was superseded. Moreover, contrary to what one might expect, citation levels decrease more quickly after restorative overrides—-in which Congress repudiates …