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What’S Age Got To Do With It? Supreme Court Appointees And The Long Run Location Of The Supreme Court Median Justice, Matthew L. Spitzer
What’S Age Got To Do With It? Supreme Court Appointees And The Long Run Location Of The Supreme Court Median Justice, Matthew L. Spitzer
Matthew L Spitzer
For approximately the past 40 years Republican Presidents have appointed younger Justices than have Democratic Presidents. Depending on how one does the accounting, the average age difference will vary, but will not go away. This Article posits that Republicans appointing younger justices than Democrats may have caused a rightward shift in the Supreme Court. We use computer simulations to show that if the trend continues the rightward shift will likely increase. We also to produce some very rough estimates of the size of the ideological shift, contingent on the size of the age differential. In addition, we show that the …
Captured Legislatures And Public-Interested Courts, Patrick Luff
Captured Legislatures And Public-Interested Courts, Patrick Luff
Patrick A. Luff
According to public choice, the predominant paradigm of modern regulatory theory, legislative activity provides benefits to small, organized interests at the expense of larger groups. In practice, this means that interest groups are often able to benefit themselves at the expense of the public good. This model has been extended to the courts, which are described as implicit or explicit actors in the wealth-transfer process. Applying public-choice theory to the courts, however, overlooks the structural differences between the federal judiciary and Congress, as well as the insights of judicial decisionmaking theory. Not only do judges receive better and more complete …