TY - JOUR
T1 - State supreme courts and the effects of statutory constraint
T2 - A test of the model of contingent discretion
AU - Randazzo, Kirk A.
AU - Waterman, Richard W.
AU - Fix, Michael P.
PY - 2011/12
Y1 - 2011/12
N2 - Do state supreme court judges render decisions according to their ideological preferences, or are they constrained by the language of state statutes? Using data from the Judge-Level State Supreme Court Database, the authors analyze the votes of individual judges from 1995 to 1998 to determine whether their behavior is constrained by legislation. The results indicate that more detailed language (resulting in statutes with higher word counts) significantly limits the discretion afforded to liberal judges while simultaneously facilitating the ideological voting of their conservative colleagues.
AB - Do state supreme court judges render decisions according to their ideological preferences, or are they constrained by the language of state statutes? Using data from the Judge-Level State Supreme Court Database, the authors analyze the votes of individual judges from 1995 to 1998 to determine whether their behavior is constrained by legislation. The results indicate that more detailed language (resulting in statutes with higher word counts) significantly limits the discretion afforded to liberal judges while simultaneously facilitating the ideological voting of their conservative colleagues.
KW - judicial politics
KW - legislative statutes
KW - state courts
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U2 - 10.1177/1065912910379229
DO - 10.1177/1065912910379229
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:82955228897
SN - 1065-9129
VL - 64
SP - 779
EP - 789
JO - Political Research Quarterly
JF - Political Research Quarterly
IS - 4
ER -