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How The Dissent Becomes The Majority: Using Federalism To Transform Coalitions In The U.S. Supreme Court, Tonja Jacobi, Vanessa A. Baird
How The Dissent Becomes The Majority: Using Federalism To Transform Coalitions In The U.S. Supreme Court, Tonja Jacobi, Vanessa A. Baird
Faculty Articles
This Article proposes that dissenting Supreme Court Justices provide cues in their written opinions about how future litigants can reframe case facts and legal arguments in similar future cases to garner majority support. Questions of federal-state power cut across most other substantive legal issues, and this can provide a mechanism for splitting existing majorities in future cases. By signaling to future litigants when this potential exists, dissenting judges can transform a dissent into a majority in similar future cases.
We undertake an empirical investigation of dissenting opinions in which the dissenting Justice suggests that future cases ought to be framed …