How to Turn Down Political Heat on Supreme Court and Federal Judges: Stop Signing Opinions

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

Kennedy Retirement Plunges Supreme Court into Politics. Here\u27s How to Turn Down the Heat.

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. [excerpt

What Senators Should Ask Brett Kavanaugh

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. There’s little doubt, however, that answering questions relating to potential future cases would threaten the neutrality we expect from all jurists — not to mention those justices at the pinnacle of Article III’s judicial hierarchy. [excerpt

Courts and Executives

William Howard Taft was both our twenty-seventh president and the tenth Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court -- the only person to have ever held both high positions in our country. He once famously commented that presidents may come and go, but the Supreme Court goes on forever (Pringle 1998). His remark reminds us that presidents serve only four-year terms (and are now limited to two of them), but justices of the Supreme court are appointed for life and leave a legacy of precedent-setting cases after departing the High Court. Of course, presidents also leave a legacy of important decisions, not the least of which being their appointment of federal judges. [excerpt

Presidential Use of Diversionary Drone Force and Public Support

During times of domestic turmoil, the use of force abroad becomes an appealing strategy to US presidents in hopes of diverting attention away from internal conditions and toward a foreign policy success. Weaponized drone technology presents a low cost and potentially high-reward option to embattled presidents. While generally covert operations, drone strikes are frequently reported in the media, making them a viable diversionary tool. To gauge whether drone strikes are in fact capable of diverting the public’s attention, we surveyed 1198 Americans and find that a successful drone strike increases presidential approval despite a weak and sagging economy, and the impact of diversionary drone use is significantly greater than that which accompanies traditional diversionary methods

Supreme court legitimacy under threat? The role of cues in how the public responds to supreme court decisions.

Understanding how the public views the Court and its rulings is crucial to assessing its institutional stability. However, as scholars note, “People are broadly supportive of the court and believe in its ‘legitimacy’—that is, that Supreme Court rulings should be respected and followed. But we don’t know that much about whether people actually agree with the case outcomes themselves.” In this article, we highlight empirical research investigating the factors that affect public agreement with Court decisions, highlighting recent developments from our work. At the onset, it is to note that the public generally hears about the Court’s decisions from media sources, not from the Court itself. Legal rulings are jam-packed with jurisprudential jargon and technical language that can be difficult for a lay audience to understand, which is why the general public is especially likely to rely on heuristics— cognitive shortcuts—as cues to help them decipher the ruling and assess whether they agree or disagree. So, what do we know about the heuristic cues that affect how the public receives Supreme Court rulings? And how is the Court faring after the controversial 2022 ruling in Dobbs and other recent politically volatile case decisions

Signals from a Politicized Bar: The Solicitor General as a Direct Litigant before the U.S. Supreme Court

In its dealings with the U.S. Supreme Court, the solicitor general’s office enjoys remarkable success. Previous accounts of the solicitor general advantage roundly explain the phenomenon as a function of the office being a source of reliable legal information to Supreme Court justices. I demonstrate, however, that macro-level analysis—the office’s overall winning percentage—misses an intricate dynamic between policy-minded justices and the executive agency. Examining every case between 1961 and 2007 in which the solicitor general’s office represented the United States before the Supreme Court, I demonstrate that “the solicitor general advantage” is present but contingent on justice-level ideological congruence. Justices who are ideologically opposed to the incumbent president treat the solicitor general’s office as an ordinary litigant, affording it no deferential treatment. Notably, adversarial voting—that is, voting behavior when faced with a political opponent—is heightened when the solicitor general’s office appears before the Court as petitioner, whereas ideological influences are nonexistent when the office appears as respondent