Justices who change: A response to epstein et al.

Northwestern University Law Review

Volumn 101, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 1885-1889

  Greenhouse, Linda ^a  

^a New York Times ^*

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EID: 37749052300     PISSN: 00293571     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (29)

1. For other recent treatments of "preference change" or "ideological drift," see LAWRENCE BAUM, JUDGES AND THEIR AUDIENCES: A PERSPECTIVE ON JUDICIAL BEHAVIOR (2006).
2. See also Michael C. Dorf, Does Federal Executive Branch Experience Explain Why Some Republican Supreme Court Justices "Evolve" and Others Don't?, 1 HARV. L. & POL'Y REV. 457 (2007);
3. Theodore W. Ruger, Justice Harry Blackmun and the Phenomenon of Judicial Preference Change, 70 MO. L. REV. 1209 (2005).
4. LINDA GREENHOUSE, BECOMING JUSTICE BLACKMUN: HARRY BLACKMUN'S SUPREME COURT JOURNEY (2005).
5. Lee Epstein et al., Ideological Drift Among Supreme Court Justices: Who, When, and How Important?, 101 NW. U. L. REV. 1483, 1505-06 (2007).
6. The reference is to the once-prevailing political science view that Justices simply seek to advance their own policy preferences. See, e.g., JEFFREY A. SEGAL & HAROLD J. SPAETH, THE SUPREME COURT AND THE ATTITUDINAL MODEL REVISITED (2002).
7. See, e.g., Bill Mears, Justice Kennedy Works On His Swing, CNN.COM, Sept. 29, 2006, http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/09/25/scotus. kennedy/index.html (quoting a Supreme Court practitioner, Thomas Goldstein, as explaining, "The basic principle is, it's Justice Kennedy's world and you just live in it.").
8. Epstein et al., supra note 3, at 1503-19.
9. ROBERT H. JACKSON, THE STRUGGLE FOR JUDICIAL SUPREMACY: A STUDY OF A CRISIS IN AMERICAN POWER POLITICS vii (1941).
10. Id.
11. 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
12. Linda Greenhouse, Harry Blackmun, Independence and Path Dependence, 56 HASTINGS L.J. 1235, 1235-36 (2005).
13. See also GREENHOUSE, supra note 2, at 207-27.
14. 530 U.S. 428, 443 (2000).
15. 384 U.S. 436 (1966).
16. For the contemporary context of this interbranch struggle, see Robert C. Post & Reva B. Siegel, Protecting the Constitution from the People: Juricentric Restrictions on Section Five Power, 78 IND. L.J. 1 (2003).
17. See, e.g., Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433 (1974).
18. See, e.g., Locke v. Davey, 540 U.S. 712 (2004) (rejecting a Free Exercise claim to statesubsidized tuition for religious study);
19. Nev. Dep't of Human Res. v. Hibbs, 538 U.S. 721 (2003) (rejecting Eleventh Amendment immunity under the Family and Medical Leave Act).
20. Sandra Day O'Connor, Thurgood Marshall: The Influence of a Raconteur, 44 STAN. L. REV. 1217, 1217 (1992).
21. Id. at 1220.
22. 509 U.S. 630 (1993).
23. 539 U.S. 306 (2003).
24. Epstein et al., supra note 3, at 1503-19.
25. BAUM, supra note 1, at 144.
26. Dorf, supra note 1, at 457-58.
27. Looking at the twelve appointees of Republican presidents beginning with Richard Nixon, the six who had executive branch experience were Burger, Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito. Id. The six who did not were Blackmun, Powell, Stevens, O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter.
28. See id.
29. WILLIAM H. CHAFE, PRIVATE LIVES/ PUBLIC CONSEQUENCES: PERSONALITY AND POLITICS IN MODERN AMERICA (2005).