IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlstud/doi10.1086-682690.html

Partisanship in State Supreme Courts: The Empirical Relationship between Party Campaign Contributions and Judicial Decision Making

Author

Listed:
  • Michael S. Kang
  • Joanna M. Shepherd

Abstract

In this article, we explore the relationship between political parties' campaign contributions and partisan voting among state supreme court judges who won partisan elections. Using three different measures of partisan voting, we find that contributions from political parties are associated with partisanship in judicial decision making. Campaign contributions from political parties are related to judicial voting in the party-preferred ideological direction and to cohesive voting among judges from the same political party. We find that the relationship between party contributions and partisan voting is stronger for Republican judges than for Democratic judges.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael S. Kang & Joanna M. Shepherd, 2015. "Partisanship in State Supreme Courts: The Empirical Relationship between Party Campaign Contributions and Judicial Decision Making," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(S1), pages 161-185.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlstud:doi:10.1086/682690
    DOI: 10.1086/682690
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/682690
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/682690
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/682690?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tabarrok, Alexander & Helland, Eric, 1999. "Court Politics: The Political Economy of Tort Awards," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(1), pages 157-188, April.
    2. Joanna M. Shepherd, 2009. "The Influence of Retention Politics on Judges' Voting," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(1), pages 169-206, January.
    3. Melinda Gann Hall & Chris W. Bonneau, 2006. "Does Quality Matter? Challengers in State Supreme Court Elections," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(1), pages 20-33, January.
    4. Eric A. Posner, 2010. "Professionals or Politicians: The Uncertain Empirical Case for an Elected Rather than Appointed Judiciary," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 26(2), pages 290-336.
    5. Sheehan, Reginald S. & Mishler, William & Songer, Donald R., 1992. "Ideology, Status, and The Differential Success of Direct Parties Before the Supreme Court," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 86(2), pages 464-471, June.
    6. Cooper, Joseph & Brady, David W., 1981. "Institutional Context and Leadership Style: The House from Cannon to Rayburn," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 75(2), pages 411-425, June.
    7. Eric Helland & Alexander Tabarrok, 2002. "The Effect of Electoral Institutions on Tort Awards," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 4(2), pages 341-370.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Murphy, Ryan H., 2020. "The Quality of Legal Systems and Property Rights by State: A Ranking and Their Implications for Economic Freedom," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 50(01), April.
    2. Elliott Ash & W. Bentley MacLeod, 2015. "Intrinsic Motivation in Public Service: Theory and Evidence from State Supreme Courts," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(4).
    3. Bonica, Adam & Sen, Maya, 2017. "The Politics of Selecting the Bench from the Bar: The Legal Profession and Partisan Incentives to Introduce Ideology into Judicial Selection," Working Paper Series rwp17-048, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    4. Ash, Elliott & MacLeod, W. Bentley, 2021. "Reducing partisanship in judicial elections can improve judge quality: Evidence from U.S. state supreme courts," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    5. Gregory DeAngelo & Bryan C. McCannon, 2019. "Political competition in judge and prosecutor elections," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 167-193, October.
    6. Alma Cohen & Alon Klement & Zvika Neeman, 2015. "Judicial Decision Making: A Dynamic Reputation Approach," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(S1), pages 133-159.
    7. Eric Helland & Alexander Tabarrok, 2003. "Race, Poverty, and American Tort Awards: Evidence from Three Data Sets," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 27-58, January.
    8. Griffin Edwards, 2014. "Doing Their Duty: An Empirical Analysis of the Unintended Effect of Tarasoff v. Regents on Homicidal Activity," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(2), pages 321-348.
    9. K. Kanthak, 2004. "Exclusive Committee Assignments and Party Pressure in the U.S. House of Representatives," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 121(3), pages 391-412, February.
    10. repec:gig:joupla:v:3:y:2011:i:3:p:95-126 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Stephen J. Choi & Mitu Gulati & Eric A. Posner, 2013. "The Law and Policy of Judicial Retirement: An Empirical Study," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(1), pages 111-150.
    12. Fedeli, Silvia & Forte, Francesco & Leonida, Leone, 2014. "The law of survival of the political class: An analysis of the Italian parliament (1946–2013)," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 102-121.
    13. Bowen, T. Renee & Krasa, Stefan & Hwang, Ilwoo, 2020. "Agenda-Setter Power Dynamics: Learning in Multi-Issue Bargaining," CEPR Discussion Papers 15406, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Roussey, Ludivine & Soubeyran, Raphael, 2018. "Overburdened judges," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 21-32.
    15. Bielen, Samantha & Grajzl, Peter & Marneffe, Wim, 2017. "Procedural events, judge characteristics, and the timing of settlement," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 97-110.
    16. Christoph Engel, 2024. "The German Constitutional Court - Activist, but not Partisan?," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics 2024_04, Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics.
    17. Arruñada, Benito & Casari, Marco, 2016. "Fragile markets: An experiment on judicial independence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 142-156.
    18. Jeff Yates & Damon M. Cann & Brent D. Boyea, 2013. "Judicial Ideology and the Selection of Disputes for U.S. Supreme Court Adjudication," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 10(4), pages 847-865, December.
    19. Benito Arru ada & Marco Casari, 2007. "How enforcement institutions affect markets," Purdue University Economics Working Papers 1200, Purdue University, Department of Economics.
    20. Drazen, Allan & Ozbay, Erkut Y., 2019. "Does “being chosen to lead” induce non-selfish behavior? Experimental evidence on reciprocity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 13-21.
    21. Bowen, Renee & Hwang, Ilwoo & Krasa, Stefan, 2022. "Personal power dynamics in bargaining," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:jlstud:doi:10.1086/682690. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JLS .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.