Pulling Punches: Congressional Constraints on the Supreme Court's Constitutional Rulings, 1987-2000

Authors: Harvey, Anna; Friedman, Barry

Source: Legislative Studies Quarterly, Volume 31, Number 4, November 2006 , pp. 533-562(30)

Publisher: Comparative Legislative Research Center, The University of Iowa

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The Center's principal activity is publishing the Legislative Studies Quarterly, an international refereed journal devoted to research on representative assemblies. The Quarterly is the official journal of the Legislative Studies Section of the American Political Science Association. It was founded in 1976 by faculty members at The University of Iowa but today its editors and the members of its editorial board are drawn from major research universities throughout the United States and abroad.
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Abstract:

To date, no study has found evidence that the U.S. Supreme Court is constrained by Congress in its constitutional decisions. We addressed the selection bias inherent in previous studies with a statute-centered, rather than a case-centered, analysis, following all congressional laws enacted between 1987 and 2000. We uncovered considerable congressional constraint in the Court's constitutional rulings. In particular, we found that the probability that the Rehnquist Court would strike a liberal congressional law rose between 47% and 288% as a result of the 1994 congressional elections, depending on the legislative model used.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.3162/036298006X201922