Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

How To Turn Down Political Heat On Supreme Court And Federal Judges: Stop Signing Opinions, Scott S. Boddery

Political Science Faculty Publications

Chief Justice John Roberts rightly — albeit in an uncharacteristically direct manner — defended the integrity of the federal judiciary and its members from a direct affront from the president of the United States. Roberts’s defense sent President Donald Trump atwitter in a series of messages that doubled down on his previous ridicule of an “Obama Judge” from the “total disaster” Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. [except]

Rights And Retrenchment In The Trump Era, Stephen B. Burbank, Sean Farhang

All Faculty Scholarship

Our aim in this essay is to leverage archival research, data and theoretical perspectives presented in our book, Rights and Retrenchment: The Counterrevolution against Federal Litigation, as a means to illuminate the prospects for retrenchment in the current political landscape. We follow the scheme of the book by separately considering the prospects for federal litigation retrenchment in three lawmaking sites: Congress, federal court rulemaking under the Rules Enabling Act, and the Supreme Court. Although pertinent data on current retrenchment initiatives are limited, our historical data and comparative institutional perspectives should afford a basis for informed prediction. Of course, little in …

What Senators Should Ask Brett Kavanaugh, Scott S. Boddery

Political Science Faculty Publications

At today’s confirmation hearing of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, senators are attempting to decipher how Kavanaugh will rule on certain issue areas should he be confirmed to the high court. Senators will undoubtedly demand answers to their questions that ask whether Judge Kavanaugh will vote to uphold certain past cases, such as Roe v. Wade or Citizens United, and they’ll want a “simple yes or no” answer. While this line of questioning will primarily originate from the left side of the aisle this time around, this tactic is routinely used by both parties when vetting Supreme Court nominees. …

Kennedy Retirement Plunges Supreme Court Into Politics. Here's How To Turn Down The Heat., Scott S. Boddery

Political Science Faculty Publications

Justice Anthony Kennedy’s decision to retire from the Supreme Court could create a sea change in the court’s jurisprudence for years to come. The debate about his successor will once again underscore the fierce partisan politics that surround the court.

It’s worth recalling that the constitutional framers originally envisioned a Supreme Court that was insulated from such politics. In fact, Alexander Hamilton argued quite famously, in Federalist No. 78, that the court must be protected from the electorate in order to serve as a check against the political branches of government without fear of reprisals at the ballot box. [ …

We’Ve Come A Long Way (Baby)! Or Have We? Evolving Intellectual Freedom Issues In The Us And Florida, L. Bryan Cooper, A.D. Beman-Cavallaro

Works of the FIU Libraries

This paper analyzes a shifting landscape of intellectual freedom (IF) in and outside Florida for children, adolescents, teens and adults. National ideals stand in tension with local and state developments, as new threats are visible in historical, legal, and technological context. Examples include doctrinal shifts, legislative bills, electronic surveillance and recent attempts to censor books, classroom texts, and reading lists.

Privacy rights for minors in Florida are increasingly unstable. New assertions of parental rights are part of a larger conservative animus. Proponents of IF can identify a lessening of ideals and standards that began after doctrinal fruition in the 1960s …

Citizens United V. Federal Election Commission, And The Inherent Unfairness To The “Un-United” American Citizen, Christopher J. Kantor

Writing Across the Curriculum

Among contemporary United States Supreme Court rulings that have impacted the structure of our nation, the 2010 case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission resulted in significant political campaign finance reform that gave rise to an election system influenced by money, corporations, and powerful individuals. The ruling of Citizens United allows for the unlimited spending of corporations and labor unions on political expenditures and the limited disclosures of these campaign donors. This overturned precedent established in the 1990 case Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and the 2003 case McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, the respective rulings of which …

Judicial Conflicts And Voting Agreement: Evidence From Interruptions At Oral Argument, Tonja Jacobi, Kyle Rozema

Faculty Articles

This Article asks whether observable conflicts between Supreme Court justices—interruptions between the justices during oral arguments—can predict breakdowns in voting outcomes that occur months later. To answer this question, we built a unique dataset based on the transcripts of Supreme Court oral arguments and justice votes in cases from 1960 to 2015. We find that on average a judicial pair is seven percent less likely to vote together in a case for each interruption that occurs between them in the oral argument for that case. While a conflict between the justices that leads to both interruptions and a breakdown in …

Assessing Criterion Validity Of Using Internet Searches As A Measure Of Public Attention, Elizabeth A. Stiles, Patrick E. Grogan-Myers

2018 Faculty Bibliography

We examine the criterion validity of using internet searches as a measure of public attention to United States Supreme Court (USSC) cases. First, we construct a measure of public attention to three cases by comparing relevant search terms in Google Trends to one top search terms of the year, then sum the measure week by week during the period of the research design. To test the measure’s criterion validity, we replicate Scott and Saunders’ (2006) models using their dataset (created by conducting phone interviews of a national sample using random digit dialing) that was designed to assess awareness of USSC …

A "Chinese Wall" At The Nation's Borders: Justice Stephen Field And The Chinese Exclusion Case, Polly J. Price

Faculty Articles

First, the sweeping implications of The Chinese Exclusion Case had as much to do with the Supreme Court's concerns about its relationship with both Congress and the President as it did with the Chinese as a disparaged racial group. There are other dimensions beyond race, and one of these was the Supreme Court's view of its role with respect to the other branches of government. Importantly, the Court did not decide the balance of authority between the President and Congress on matters of immigration, an omission that surely lessens its precedential value today.

Second, the Court's pronouncement in the Chinese …

Judicial Conflicts And Voting Agreement: Evidence From Interruptions At Oral Argument, Kyle Rozema, Tonja Jacobi

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Article asks whether observable conflicts between judges in a case—interruptions between Supreme Court justices during oral arguments—are associated with future breakdowns in voting agreement among the judges in the case. To do so, we built a dataset containing justice-to-justice interruptions in cases between 1960 to 2015, and employ a framework for measuring case outcomes that treats the outcomes as a set of agreements and disagreements between pairs of justices. We find that on average a judicial pair is 7 percent less likely to vote together in a case for each interruption that occurs in the case between the judicial …