Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T05:03:13.315Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How State Judicial Selection Methods May Influence Views of US Supreme Court Nominees

Evidence from a Conjoint Experiment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2022

Christopher N. Krewson  and
Ryan J. Owens
Christopher N. Krewson*
Affiliation:
Brigham Young University, USA
Ryan J. Owens
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, USA
*
Contact the corresponding author, Christopher N. Krewson, at chris_krewson@byu.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We examine whether state judicial selection methods influence people’s evaluations of US Supreme Court nominees. We find that people from appointing states use nominee characteristics in their evaluations differently than people in electing states. Those from appointing states appear to be more concerned with traditional legal factors, while people from electing states appear to be slightly less concerned with them. Although the importance varies from characteristic to characteristic, state judicial selection system has a broad role in shaping how people evaluate judicial nominees. These findings counsel further research on judicial institutions and the public’s expectations of judges.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Law and Courts , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , Fall 2022 , pp. 189 - 212
Copyright
© 2022 Law and Courts Organized Section of the American Political Science Association. All rights reserved.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Replication materials are available in the JLC Dataverse at https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/U7LLAK.

References

Badas, Alex, and Stauffer, Katelyn E. 2018. “Someone Like Me: Descriptive Representation and Support for Supreme Court Nominees.” Political Research Quarterly 71 (1): 127–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bansak, Kirk, Hainmueller, Jens, Hopkins, Daniel J., and Yamamoto, Teppei. 2021. “Beyond the Breaking Point? Survey Satisficing in Conjoint Experiments.” Political Science Research and Methods 9 (1): 53–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartels, Brandon L., and Johnston, Christopher D. 2012. “Political Justice? Perceptions of Politicization and Public Preferences toward the Supreme Court Appointment Process.” Public Opinion Quarterly 76 (1): 105–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benesh, Sara C. 2006. “Understanding Public Confidence in American Courts.” Journal of Politics 68 (3): 697–707.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonneau, Chris W., and Gann Hall, Melinda. 2009. In Defense of Judicial Elections. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butler, Daniel M., and Powell, Eleanor Neff. 2014. “Understanding the Party Brand: Experimental Evidence on the Role of Valence.” Journal of Politics 76 (2): 492–505.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cann, Damon M., and Yates, Jeff. 2008. “Homegrown Institutional Legitimacy: Assessing Citizens’ Diffuse Support for State Courts.” American Politics Research 36 (2): 297–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Philip G., and Bryan, Amanda C. 2018. “Judging the ‘Vapid and Hollow Charade’: Citizen Evaluations and the Candor of US Supreme Court Nominees.” Political Behavior 40 (2): 495–520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahlberg, Stefan, and Harteveld, Eelco. 2016. “Left-Right Ideology as an Inferential Device in Multiparty Systems: Can Citizens Overcome Low Information by Imputing Parties’ Policy Positions?” Electoral Studies 42: 175–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carpini, Delli, Michael, X., and Keeter, Scott. 1996. What Americans Know about Politics and Why It Matters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Engst, Benjamin G., Gschwend, Thomas, and Sternberg, Sebastian. 2017. “Public Support for Judicial Nominations: Evidence from a Discrete-Choice Experiment.” Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the European Political Science Association, Milan.Google Scholar
Franklin, Charles H., and Kosaki, Liane C. 1989. “Republican Schoolmaster: The U.S. Supreme Court, Public Opinion, and Abortion.” American Political Science Review 83 (3): 751–71.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gibson, James L. 2012. Electing Judges: The Surprising Effects of Campaigning on Judicial Legitimacy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L. 2015. “Legitimacy Is for Losers: The Interconnections of Institutional Legitimacy, Performance Evaluations, and the Symbols of Judicial Authority.” In Motivating Cooperation and Compliance with Authority, ed. Bornstein, B. H. and Tomkins, A. J., 81–116. Cham: Springer.Google Scholar
Gibson, James L., and Caldeira, Gregory A. 2009a. Citizens, Courts, and Confirmations: Positivity Theory and the Judgments of the American People. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L., and Caldeira, Gregory A. 2009b. “Confirmation Politics and the Legitimacy of the US Supreme Court: Institutional Loyalty, Positivity Bias, and the Alito Nomination.” American Journal of Political Science 53 (1): 139–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L., and Caldeira, Gregory A. 2009c. “Knowing the Supreme Court? A Reconsideration of Public Ignorance of the High Court.” Journal of Politics 71 (2): 429–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L., and Caldeira, Gregory A. 2012. “Campaign Support, Conflicts of Interest, and Judicial Impartiality: Can Recusals Rescue the Legitimacy of Courts?” Journal of Politics 74 (1): 18–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L., Lodge, Milton, and Woodson, Benjamin. 2014. “Losing, but Accepting: Legitimacy, Positivity Theory, and the Symbols of Judicial Authority.” Law and Society Review 48 (4): 837–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L., and Nelson, Michael J. 2016. “Change in Institutional Support for the U.S. Supreme Court: Is the Court’s Legitimacy Imperiled by the Decisions It Makes?” Public Opinion Quarterly 80 (3): 622–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gimpel, James G., and Wolpert, Robin M. 1996. “Opinion-Holding and Public Attitudes toward Controversial Supreme Court Nominees.” Political Research Quarterly 49 (1): 163–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hainmueller, Jens, Hopkins, Daniel J., and Yamamoto, Teppei. 2013. “Causal Inference in Conjoint Analysis: Understanding Multidimensional Choices via Stated Preference Experiments.” Political Analysis 22 (1): 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansford, Thomas G., Intawan, Chanita, and Nicholson, Stephen P. 2018. “Snap Judgment: Implicit Perceptions of a (Political) Court.” Political Behavior 40 (1): 127–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoekstra, Valerie, and LaRowe, Nicholas. 2013. “Judging Nominees: An Experimental Test of the Impact of Qualifications and Divisiveness on Public Support for Nominees to the Federal Courts.” Justice System Journal 34 (1): 38–61.Google Scholar
Hume, Robert J. 2011. “State Courts and Policy Legitimation: An Experimental Study of the Ability of State Courts to Change Opinion.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 42 (2): 211–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutchens, Myiah J. 2017. “Nested Model Comparison.” In The International Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.Google Scholar
Ioannidis, John P. A. 2005. “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.” PLoS Medicine 2 (8): e124.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kahneman, Daniel, and Tversky, Amos. 1979. “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk.” Econometrica 47 (2): 263–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaslovsky, Jaclyn, Rogowski, Jon C., and Stone, Andrew R. 2021. “Descriptive Representation and Public Support for Supreme Court Nominees.” Political Science Research and Methods 9 (3): 583–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leeper, Thomas J., Hobolt, Sara B., and Tilley, James. 2020. “Measuring Subgroup Preferences in Conjoint Experiments.” Political Analysis 28 (2): 207–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, Michael J. 2017. “Judicial Elections and Support for State Courts.” In Judicial Elections in the 21st Century, ed. Bonneau, Chris W. and Gann Hall, Melinda. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Pesaran, M. Hashem. 1974. “On the General Problem of Model Selection.” Review of Economic Studies 41 (2): 153–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Popkin, Samuel L. 1994. The Reasoning Voter: Communication and Persuasion in Presidential Campaigns. 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rogowski, Jon C., and Stone, Andrew R. 2021. “How Political Contestation over Judicial Nominations Polarizes Americans’ Attitudes toward the Supreme Court.” British Journal of Political Science 51 (3): 1251–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheufele, Dietram A., and Lewenstein, Bruce V. 2005. “The Public and Nanotechnology: How Citizens Make Sense of Emerging Technologies.” Journal of Nanoparticle Research 7: 659–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, Maya. 2017. “How Political Signals Affect Public Support for Judicial Nominations: Evidence from a Conjoint Experiment.” Political Research Quarterly 70 (2): 374–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sulfaro, Valerie A. 1996. “The Role of Ideology and Political Sophistication in the Structure of Foreign Policy Attitudes.” American Politics Quarterly 24 (3): 303–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wasmann, Erik, Lovrich, Nicholas P., and Sheldon, Charles H. 1986. “Perceptions of State and Local Courts: A Comparison across Selection Systems.” Justice System Journal 11 (2): 168–85.Google Scholar
Wenzel, James P., Bowler, Shaun, and Lanoue, David J. 2003. “The Sources of Public Confidence in State Courts: Experience and Institutions.” American Politics Research 31 (2): 191–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodson, Benjamin. 2017. “The Two Opposing Effects of Judicial Elections on Legitimacy Perceptions.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 17 (1): 24–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Krewson and Owens Supplementary material
Download undefined(File)
File 163.4 KB