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Senate Voting on Supreme Court Nominees: A Neoinstitutional Model

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  • Cameron, Charles M.
  • Cover, Albert D.
  • Segal, Jeffrey A.

Abstract

We develop and test a neoinstitutional model of Senate roll call voting on nominees to the Supreme Court. The statistical model assumes that Senators examine the characteristics of nominees and use their roll call votes to establish an electorally attractive position on the nominees. The model is tested with probit estimates on the 2,054 confirmation votes from Earl Warren to Anthony Kennedy. The model performs remarkably well in predicting the individual votes of Senators to confirm or reject nominees. Senators routinely vote to confirm nominees who are perceived as well qualified and ideologically proximate to Senators' constituents. When nominees are less well qualified and are relatively distant, however, Senators' votes depend to a large degree on the political environment, especially the status of the president.

Suggested Citation

  • Cameron, Charles M. & Cover, Albert D. & Segal, Jeffrey A., 1990. "Senate Voting on Supreme Court Nominees: A Neoinstitutional Model," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 84(2), pages 525-534, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:84:y:1990:i:02:p:525-534_19
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Charles R. Shipan, 2008. "Partisanship, Ideology, and Senate Voting on Supreme Court Nominees," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 5(1), pages 55-76, March.
    2. Maya Sen & William Spaniel, 2017. "How uncertainty about judicial nominees can distort the confirmation process," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 29(1), pages 22-47, January.
    3. David M. Primo & Sarah A. Binder & Forrest Maltzman, 2008. "Who Consents? Competing Pivots in Federal Judicial Selection," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(3), pages 471-489, July.
    4. Kenneth Shepsle & Barry Weingast, 2012. "Why so much stability? Majority voting, legislative institutions, and Gordon Tullock," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 152(1), pages 83-95, July.
    5. Gary E Hollibaugh Jr, 2015. "Vacancies, vetting, and votes: A unified dynamic model of the appointments process," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 27(2), pages 206-236, April.
    6. Bustos, Álvaro & Jacobi, Tonja, 2015. "Communicating judicial retirement," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 107-118.
    7. Charles M. Cameron & Jee‐Kwang Park, 2009. "How Will They Vote? Predicting the Future Behavior of Supreme Court Nominees, 1937–2006," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 6(3), pages 485-511, September.
    8. Schoenherr, Jessica A. & Black, Ryan C., 2019. "Friends with benefits: Case significance, amicus curiae, and agenda setting on the U.S. Supreme Court," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 43-53.
    9. Caitlin Ainsley, 2022. "Federal reserve appointments and the politics of senate confirmation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 190(1), pages 93-110, January.
    10. Harden Jeffrey J., 2012. "Improving Statistical Inference with Clustered Data," Statistics, Politics and Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-30, January.
    11. Thomas H. Hammond & Jeffrey S. Hill, 1993. "Deference or Preference?," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 5(1), pages 23-59, January.

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