The Presidents' Strategic Use of Minorities to the Federal Bench

• In Event: Executive Branch Politics in the U.S. Federal Judiciary

Abstract

For the past forty years Democratic presidents have made diversification of the federal bench their defining philosophy in shaping the federal courts. We know that, in the aggregate, Presidents Carter, Clinton and Obama have been increasingly successful at achieving their goals. However, was it only aggregate diversity numbers the presidents strove to obtain, or were their diversity strategies more fine-tuned? Given that diversity was purported by the presidents to be used to raise levels of the courts' legitimacy in the eyes of minorities, were the diversity appointments focused in regions where there are population centers of a particular minority?

Using a unique data set of all minority appointments made by the three Democratic presidents to all levels of the federal bench, my co-author and I intend to parse out what the real intended goal of these presidents were? The implications of our findings will aid in our understanding of the presidents' motivations in choosing minority judges. If they aimed for diversity in the aggregate, this suggests that their primary concern was to give the appearance of diversity without trying to accomplish their stated goals of diversity. This, in turn, may reflect a strategy aimed at minority elites. If, on the other hand, we find strategic appointments being made to minority population centers, this could suggest that the presidents' intentions were to raise the legitimacy levels of the optimal level of minorities in the population (in addition to pleasing elite minorities who focus closely on judicial appointments).

Authors

• Nancy Scherer, Wellesley College

• Banks P. Miller, University of Texas at Dallas