Vote Influence in Group Decision-Making: The Changing Role of Justices' Peers on the Supreme Court

Maxwell R. Mindock () and Glen R. Waddell ()
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Maxwell R. Mindock: University of Oregon
Glen R. Waddell: University of Oregon

No 12317, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We consider the voting behavior of Supreme Court Justices, finding evidence of co-dependencies in their votes. Coincident with changes in the party imbalance of the Court over time, sharp discontinuities in these dependencies are evident. Overall, the patterns suggest a tradeoff between co-dependencies around political affiliations and individual ideologies, with more-equal party representation on the Court encouraging greater party awareness in Justice voting, and less-equal party representation allowing Justices across party lines but with similar ideologies to inform each other's votes.

Keywords: Supreme Court; voting; judicial behavior; spatial econometrics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 D7 K41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2019-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-law and nep-pol
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