IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/amposc/v50y2006i1p20-33.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does Quality Matter? Challengers in State Supreme Court Elections

Author

Listed:
  • Melinda Gann Hall
  • Chris W. Bonneau

Abstract

We assess whether quality challengers in state supreme court elections have a significant impact on the electoral successes of incumbents and whether the electorate seemingly makes candidate‐based evaluations in these races. To address these questions, we examine 208 elections to the states' highest courts from 1990 through 2000 in the 21 states using partisan or nonpartisan elections to staff their benches. From a Heckman two‐stage estimation procedure that takes into account factors influencing challengers' decisions to run as well as factors affecting the electorate's choices among candidates, we find that quality does matter. Experienced challengers significantly lessen the electoral security of incumbents, and the electorate appears to evaluate challengers' qualifications. These findings stand in stark relief to traditional notions that the electorate is incapable of responding to candidate stimuli beyond incumbency and that judicial elections inherently are an ineffective means for securing popular control over the bench.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:50:y:2006:i:1:p:20-33
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2006.00167.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2006.00167.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2006.00167.x?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
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. 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).
    2. 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).
    3. 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.
    4. Melinda Gann Hall & Chris W. Bonneau, 2008. "Mobilizing Interest: The Effects of Money on Citizen Participation in State Supreme Court Elections," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(3), pages 457-470, July.

    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:wly:amposc:v:50:y:2006:i:1:p:20-33. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1540-5907 .

    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.