Local Media and the Unraveling of Democratic Linkages in Judicial Politics

• In Event: Courts and the (New) Media

Abstract

Before voters can participate in judicial elections and hold individuals to account, they must know something about their qualifications, preferences, party affiliations, etc. One of the most important means by which voters learn about candidates is through local reporting. The press are a key intermediary in American politics. Reporting affects voter participation, the incumbency advantage, and the propensity of politicians to cater to popular preferences. Cann and Wilhelm (2011) find that in highly salient cases from the 1990s, elected state supreme court justices were more likely to pander to popular preferences when local newspapers covered their decisions. But since the 1990s, the newspaper industry has shed nearly 60 percent of its workforce (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016). A receding news industry at the local level has critical implications for the capacity of voters to engage in judicial elections in addition to the likelihood that judges would cater to popular preferences in their decision-making.

In this research, I compile the largest dataset to date regarding local reporting on state supreme court elections and decision-making between 2002 and 2014. Preliminary results show that local reporting not only stimulates voter participation but also that such participation often comes at the expense of incumbent justices. Even still, I find that the rate of reporting on local courts has decreased dramatically in recent years. I find that this stimulating effect depends upon a critical mass of news coverage—a mass that has almost entirely disappeared in recent years. I then consider the consequences of a receding news industry on the pandering phenomenon. I plan to extend Cann and Wilhelm’s (2011) research through 2014 in the area of death penalty jurisprudence and determine whether judges are any less likely to pander today given a diminished news industry compared to the 1990s when it was relatively robust. Understanding the answers to these questions has critical payoffs to our knowledge surrounding the presence and strength of the democratic linkages binding voters and judges.

Author

• David A. Hughes, Auburn University Montgomery