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Full-Text Articles in Law

Politics, Identity, And Class Certification On The U.S. Courts Of Appeals, Stephen B. Burbank, Sean Farhang Aug 2019

Politics, Identity, And Class Certification On The U.S. Courts Of Appeals, Stephen B. Burbank, Sean Farhang

Sean Farhang

This article draws on novel data and presents the results of the first empirical analysis of how potentially salient characteristics of Court of Appeals judges influence precedential lawmaking on class certification under Rule 23. We find that the partisan composition of the panel (measured by the party of the appointing president) has a very strong association with certification outcomes, with all-Democratic panels having more than double the certification rate of all-Republican panels in precedential cases. We also find that the presence of one African American on a panel, and the presence of two females (but not one), is associated with …


Show Me The Money: An Empirical Analysis Of Interest Group Opposition To Federal Courts Of Appeals Nominees, Donald E. Campbell, Marcus Hendershot Jan 2019

Show Me The Money: An Empirical Analysis Of Interest Group Opposition To Federal Courts Of Appeals Nominees, Donald E. Campbell, Marcus Hendershot

Journal Articles

Contemporary views of the federal judicial appointment process are grounded in themes of obstruction and gridlock. Within this environment, interest groups find fertile ground to target, and sometimes successfully oppose, judicial nominees that once automatically moved through the appointment process and ended in confirmation. While interest group involvement and influence is an accepted fact, much less is known about the efficacy of these groups in carrying out their objective of correctly identifying ideological outlier nominees. This article asks the question: Do interest groups correctly identify and target nominees who are ideological outliers? The article implements a research design that evaluates …