Supreme Court Pivots

• In Event: Bargaining and Organizing

Abstract

While the Supreme Court decides cases by majority rule, only four justices are necessary for the court to hear a case. To assess the implications of minority pivotal decision makers, we analyze a three-stage model of Supreme Court decision making. First, the court decides whether to hear a case. Second, the court holds an up or down vote on whether to overturn or uphold the current status quo. Finally, members of the majority voting coalition bargain to write the majority opinion. We show that changing the pivotal hearing justice has two effects. First, as the justice becomes more extreme, the set of policies that will be heard by the court also becomes larger. That is, as the pivotal justice becomes more conservative, policies with more conservative status quos will be brought before the court. Second, as a pivotal justice becomes more extreme, there are more split decisions. These effects occur even when the median justice stays the same, showing that Supreme Court nominations are not just a move the median game.

Authors

• Gregory Sasso, Emory University

• Gleason Judd, Princeton University