Judicial Independence and Minority Interests

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Ballot design can have a huge impact on voter participation, especially in nonpartisan elections

The ballot is one of the most fundamental implements of democracy – but can ballot design influence the outcome of an election? Chris W. Bonneau and Eric Loepp find that ballots that give voters the ability to vote for all candidates with the same party label (the straight-ticket voting option) in multiple elections may have major consequences for electoral participation, especially in ‘down-ticket’ races. They argue that while straight ticket voting may enhance participation in these races if they are partisan, non-partisan ‘down ticket’ races are much more likely to see reduced voter participation

Despite a variety of ballot measures and some expensive races, the midterms were relatively quiet for judicial elections

While most commentators have been focused on the outcome of key Senate races in this year’s midterm elections, it is important to remember that many states were also electing judges for high courts as well this week. Chris W. Bonneau and Jeremy R. Johnson give an overview of the results including a million dollar race in North Carolina, ballot measures on judicial retirement ages, and Tennessee’s vote to allow the governor to appoint judges of the Supreme Court and intermediate appellate court, subject to legislative approval

Nonpartisan election formats do not affect voting behaviors

Nonpartisan elections—in which candidates are not endorsed by a political party and their party affiliation does not appear on the ballot—have been criticized as depriving crucial information to voters, making it difficult for them to vote for candidates that represent their beliefs. Chris W. Bonneau and Damon M. Cann tested the impact of nonpartisan election conditions using both a laboratory experiment and data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Survey. They find that there is no significant difference between voting behaviors in partisan and nonpartisan election formats

Supreme Court judgments based on reasons outside the law are unlikely to harm its legitimacy.

While almost all judgments from the Supreme Court are based on some kind of existing law, there are a small number which are not. Instead justices use public opinion, religious texts, and their own personal beliefs to justify their decisions. In new research, Chris Bonneau, Jarrod Kelly, Kira Pronin, Shane Redman and Matt Zarit examine whether such ‘extralegal’ decisions harm the Court’s legitimacy in the eyes of the public. They find that when moral or public opinion reasons are provided in addition to legal precedents, then public opinion about that decision’s legitimacy does not change. Members of the public only change their opinion on a decision’s legitimacy when they believe one specific reason is inappropriate and they disagree with the outcome

Understanding Judicial Hierarchy, Reversals and the Behavior of Intermediate Appellate

One of the central controversies in the judicial behavior literature is the extent to which judges' ability to act according to their ideological preferences is affected by their location in the judicial hierarchy. Judges on intermediate appellate courts have different decisionmaking environments than high court judges. As a result, the goals of lower appellate court judges may differ from those of their superiors: the quest for legal accuracy may compete with the desire to pursue policy preferences. Analysis of the reversal rate of the U.S. circuit courts of appeals offers insight into the extent to which these judges balance the pressures of their own policy preferences with the desire to achieve the legally accurate result in cases they decide. Int eraction between first-level and second-level appellate courts is a subject that has garnered increasing attention over the past several years, but an opportunity to bridge disciplinary divides by integrating recent scholarly work by political scientists and legal academics has largely been missed in the process. Disagreements between the two levels of courts produce reversals of the lower court by the higher court, but the process that drives such reversal is not well-understood given its importance in maintenance of judicial organization. Particularly in systems where review by the second-level appellate court is discretionary, higher courts reverse lower courts in pursuit of making broader policy statements, so the process takes on added importance. Work that assesses decisions by high courts to grant leave to appea

“I like them, but won't ‘like’ them”: An examination of impression management associated with visible political party affiliation on Facebook

Unlike traditional media, our interactions with political parties via social media are generally public, subject to scrutiny by others and, consequently, a self-presentation concern. This paper contributes to theory on impression management within social network sites (SNSs) by providing an understanding of the effect of visible affiliation on page ‘Liking’ behavior in the context of political parties; specifically, the possible association with social anxiety and the use of protective impression management. We predict that while users may be motivated to ‘Like’ a political party, some may feel socially anxious about the impressions their friends may derive from this action, and so ultimately choose to refrain from ‘Liking’ the party. Furthermore, we propose a new function of ‘Secret Likes’ (i.e. ‘Likes’ that others cannot see) as a means to increase gateway interactions. A survey of eligible voters (n=225) was conducted in the month prior to the 2015 UK general election, examining behavior associated with the Facebook pages of the two largest political parties. Results support that conspicuous affiliation with political parties indeed hinders intention to ‘Like’ political pages and is associated with social anxiety. ‘Secret Likes’ were found to be a successful method to increase gateway interactions. In addition to the theoretical contribution, implications for political party communications and site designers are considered

The Rule of Law is Dead! Long Live the Rule of Law!

Polls show that a significant proportion of the public considers judges to be political. This result holds whether Americans are asked about Supreme Court justices, federal judges, state judges, or judges in general. At the same time, a large majority of the public also believes that judges are fair and impartial arbiters, and this belief also applies across the board. In this paper, I consider what this half-law-half-politics understanding of the courts means for judicial legitimacy and the public confidence on which that legitimacy rests. Drawing on the Legal Realists, and particularly on the work of Thurman Arnold, I argue against the notion that the contradictory views must be resolved in order for judicial legitimacy to remain intact. A rule of law built on contending legal and political beliefs is not necessarily fair or just. But it can be stable. At least in the context of law and courts, a house divided may stand

Genome-wide association for milk production and lactation curve parameters in Holstein dairy cows

The aim of this study was to identify genomic regions associated with 305-day milk yield and lactation curve parameters on primiparous (n = 9,910) and multiparous (n = 11,158) Holstein cows. The SNP solutions were estimated using a weighted single-step genomic BLUP approach and imputed high-density panel (777k) genotypes. The proportion of genetic variance explained by windows of 50 consecutive SNP (with an average of 165 Kb) was calculated, and regions that accounted for more than 0.50% of the variance were used to search for candidate genes. Estimated heritabilities were 0.37, 0.34, 0.17, 0.12, 0.30 and 0.19, respectively, for 305-day milk yield, peak yield, peak time, ramp, scale and decay for primiparous cows. Genetic correlations of 305-day milk yield with peak yield, peak time, ramp, scale and decay in primiparous cows were 0.99, 0.63, 0.20, 0.97 and -0.52, respectively. The results identified three windows on BTA14 associated with 305-day milk yield and the parameters of lactation curve in primi- and multiparous cows. Previously proposed candidate genes for milk yield supported by this work include GRINA, CYHR1, FOXH1, TONSL, PPP1R16A, ARHGAP39, MAF1, OPLAH and MROH1, whereas newly identified candidate genes are MIR2308, ZNF7, ZNF34, SLURP1, MAFA and KIFC2 (BTA14). The protein lipidation biological process term, which plays a key role in controlling protein localization and function, was identified as the most important term enriched by the identified genes