Right on: The decision-making behavior of George W. Bush's judicial appointees

Judicature

Volumn 92, Issue 6, 2009, Pages 312-319

  Carp, Robert A ^a   Manning, Kenneth L ^b   Stidham, Ronald ^c  

^a UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS DARTMOUTH   (United States)

^c APPALACHIAN STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 68949135778     PISSN: 00225800     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (22)

1. Robert A. Carp, Kenneth L. Manning, and Ronald Stidham, The Decision-making Behavior of George W. Bush's Judicial Appointees: Far-Right, Conservative, or Moderate? 88 JUDICATURE 28 (2004).
2. For a summary of this literature, see Robert A. Carp, Ronald Stidham, and Kenneth L. Manning, JUDICIAL PROCESS IN AMERICA, 7th ed, Ch 7, (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2007).
3. Stuart Taylor, Jr., The Supreme Question, Newsweek, July 10, 2000, at 20.
4. Bennett Roth, Bush Submits 11 Names for FederalBench, Houston Chronicle, May 10, 2001, at A1.
5. As quoted in Sheldon Goldman, Elliot Slotnick, Gerard Gryski, Gary Zuk, and Sara Schiavoni, W Bush remaking the judiciary; Like father like son?86JUDICATURE 284 (2003).
6. As quoted in Sheldon Goldman, Elliot Slotnick, Gerard Gryski, and Sara Schiavoni, W. Bush's judiciary: The first term record, 88 JUDICATURE 245246 (2005).
7. Id.
8. As quoted in R. Jeffrey Smith, The politics of the Federal Bench, Washington Post, December 9, 2009, at A-I.
9. Jon R. Bond, The Politics of Court Structure: The Addition of New Federal Judges, LAW AND POL. Q182, 183, 187 (1980).
10. As of February 17, 2009, there are also 373 "senior status" district judges on the bench who are not included in these totals.
11. For example, during his first term two of his appellate court nominees (Priscilla Owen and Charles Pickering) received negative votes from the Judiciary Committee, and the names of 28 other district and appellate court candidates were returned to die president without any action being taken by the Committee.
12. Supran. 8.
13. One would think that this percentage would be even higher, given the fact that Bush appointed 40 percent of all current federal district judges. However, during the time of his incumbency (2001-2009) the vast majority of the judges who died or retired were those appointed by previous GOP presidents. Thus to some degree W. Bush was largely replacing Republican jurists who were leaving the bench, and that is why his net gain is not larger than it is.
14. These rulings were handed down in three key issue areas: Civil liberties & rights n = 1281; Criminal justice n = 713; Labor and economic regulation n = 686. Though we only coded district court rulings, prior research suggests that the behavior by jurists at this level of the judiciary is comparable to the behavior of judges appointed by the same president to the courts of appeals. See Ronald Stidham, Robert A. Carp, and Donald R. Songer, The voting behavior of President Clinton's judicial appointees, 80 JUDICATURE 16-20 (1996);
15. and Robert A. Carp, Donald Songer, C.K. Rowland, Ronald Stidham, and Lisa Richey-Tracy, The voting behavior of judges appointed by President Bush, 76 JUDICATURE 298-302 (1993).
16. Supra n. 1, at 27. There is no evidence die same Bush judges have grown more conservative, Rather, adding more conservative appointees into the mix may be responsible for the findings. To be absolutely certain that the W. Bush judges have been growing more conservative over time would require more sophisticated statistical tests than have been employed in this study.
17. Supra n 2, at 322-325.
18. Supra n. 2, at 319-325.
19. When a case involves a singular charge of discrimination based on gender, race, physical handicap, or age, it is coded separately. However, when there is a combination of such charges, the case is coded in the more composite variable of general "Fourteenth Amendment cases."
20. Our n's on the "right to privacy" variable are comparatively small, and thus we have chosen not to produce a formal table for this data. The results from these smaller n's are quite consistent with our empirical findings and also consistent with the anecdotal literature. Still, because the numbers are smaller, we must be more cautious in our conclusions here.
21. See Robert A. Carp, Kenneth L. Manning, and Ronald Stidham, President Clinton's district judges: 'Extreme liberals' or just plain moderates? 84 JUDICATURE 284-288 (2001).
22. Supra n. 1, at 27-28.