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Priming Ideology: Why Presidential Elections Affect U.S. Judges

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  • Chen, Daniel L.

Abstract

U.S. Presidential elections polarize U.S. Courts of Appeals judges, doubling their dissents, partisan voting, and lawmaking along partisan lines and increasing their reversal of District Court decisions (Berdejo and Chen 2016). Dissents are elevated for ten months before the Presidential elections. I develop a theoretical model showing that the salience of partisan identities drives these behavioral patterns. The polarizing effects are larger in close elections, non-existent in landslide elections, and reversed in wartime elections. I link judges to their states of residence and exploit variation in the timing and importance of a state during the electoral season. Dissents are elevated in swing states and in states that count heavily to winning the election, when these states are competitive. U.S. Senate elections, the timing of which also varies by state, further elevate dissents. I link administrative data on case progression and frequency of campaign advertisements in judges’ states of residence to proxy for a state’s importance during Presidential primaries. Dissents occur shortly before publication, increase with monthly increases in campaign ads, and appear for cases whose legal topic, economic activity, is most heavily covered by campaign ads. Finally, I link the cases to their potential resolution in the Supreme Court. Dissents before elections appear on more marginal cases that cite discretionary miscellaneous issues and procedural (rather than substantive) arguments, which the Supreme Court appears to recognize and only partly remedy. The behavioral changes of unelected Courts of Appeals judges are larger than the behavioral changes of elected judges running for re-election.

Suggested Citation

  • Chen, Daniel L., 2016. "Priming Ideology: Why Presidential Elections Affect U.S. Judges," IAST Working Papers 16-39, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST), revised Aug 2016.
  • Handle: RePEc:tse:iastwp:30640
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    Cited by:

    1. Chen, Daniel L. & Prescott, J.J., 2016. "Implicit Egoism in Sentencing Decisions: First Letter Name Effects with Randomly Assigned Defendants," IAST Working Papers 16-56, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).
    2. Ramos Maqueda,Manuel & Chen,Daniel Li, 2021. "The Role of Justice in Development : The Data Revolution," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9720, The World Bank.
    3. Chen, Daniel L. & Michaeli, Moti & Spiro, Daniel, 2020. "Legitimizing Policy," TSE Working Papers 20-1123, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    4. Chen, Daniel L. & Sethi, Jasmin, 2016. "Insiders, Outsiders, and Involuntary Unemployment: Sexual Harrassment Exacerbates Gender Inequality," TSE Working Papers 16-687, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    5. Chen, Daniel L. & Michaeli, Moti & Spiro, Daniel, 2023. "Non-confrontational extremists," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    6. Chen, Daniel L. & Reinhart, Eric, 2016. "The Disavowal of Decisionism: Politically Motivated Exits from the U.S. Courts of Appeals," TSE Working Papers 16-721, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Feb 2017.
    7. Carlos Berdejó & Daniel L. Chen, 2017. "Electoral Cycles among US Courts of Appeals Judges," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(3), pages 479-496.
    8. Chen, Daniel L. & Loecher, Markus, 2016. "Mood and the Malleability of Moral Reasoning: The Impact of Irrelevant Factors on Judicial Decisions," IAST Working Papers 16-49, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST), revised Sep 2019.
    9. Chen, Daniel L., 2016. "Mood and the Malleability of Moral Reasoning," TSE Working Papers 16-707, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Feb 2017.
    10. Chen, Daniel L. & Cui, Xing & Shang, Lanyu & Zheng, Junchao, 2016. "What Matters: Agreement Between U.S. Courts of Appeals Judges," TSE Working Papers 16-747, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Judicial Decision-Making; Group Decision-Making; Moral Decision-Making; Salience;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
    • K00 - Law and Economics - - General - - - General (including Data Sources and Description)
    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics

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