Under Review
There's No Place Like Home: Home State Bias in Environmental Pollution Disputes
The US federal courts were designed, in part, to be neutral arbiters in disputes between parties from different states. Interested observers have long debated how successful the courts are in that mission. In this study, I test their neutrality using real-world courtroom data. Applying theories of in-group bias to judicial decision-making, I hypothesize that parties that share a home state with a federal judge are more likely to be successful when competing against an out-of-state opponent. I test this expectation using a generalizable causal inference strategy and a dataset of over 800 environmental pollution cases and 2,500 individual votes. The results indicate that parties with a home state advantage over their opponent are more likely to win a judge's vote, both when they are accused of pollution and when they are accusing others. This study is an example of the normative and empirical concerns that arise when decision-makers like judges rely on preconceived biases. Not only do they complicate the efforts of researchers to model judicial behavior, but they also call into question the premise of equality in the American justice system.
The Impact of Judicial Selection Method on State Supreme Court Justice Ideology
(with Alan J. Simmons)
Among political institutions in the United States, state courts are surprisingly susceptible to ideological extremism because of the non-uniform ways judges are selected. In this paper we examine the effect of selection methods on the ideological composition of state supreme courts. We theorize that methods involving partisan politics lead to more ideological justices and that, among that subset, ideologically conservative justices will be the most extreme. We test our expectations using a dataset of over 900 state supreme court selections between 1961-2011. Using a contemporary matching algorithm designed to maximize causal identification, we find support for our hypotheses. Our results speak to the consequences of federalism in court composition and offer an insight into how polarization manifests in the judiciary.
Affinity or Ambivalence? Voter Attitudes Toward the Illinois Workers’ Rights Amendment
(with Magic Wade and Alan J. Simmons)
In 2022 Illinois voters were faced with a ballot measure asking them whether they supported adding a Workers’ Rights Amendment to the state constitution. Despite countervailing forces that might have made passage difficult, the amendment passed. We explore whether support for collective bargaining rights and union protections followed a predictably partisan pattern in Illinois, or whether support for the amendment was shaped by arguments, endorsements, or other voter demographics. Fielding a survey with a representative sample of 1,000 Illinois voters, we find that partisans had stronger attitudes toward the WRA than independents, that Democrats and Independents were more fixed in their attitudes than Republicans when exposed to experimental treatments focused on arguments and endorsements, and that working-class voters were more ambivalent than college educated voters. We conclude by conjecturing about the meaning of our results in light of the outcome of the amendment on the 2022 ballot.
Working Papers
In-Groups and Legitimacy: The Effect of Heuristics in Diffuse Support Evaluations
(with Joshua Boston)
Scholars have long considered whether and how public approval of judicial institutionsvaries systematically with legal policy; as particular case outcomes increasingly alignwith individuals’ partisan or ideological identities, individuals would be more likelyto approve of how judges perform their jobs. But scholars have largely ignored therole of judicial identity in conditioning public acceptance of case outcomes and ap-proval of judges. Do perceptions of a judge’s identity condition public support? Inparticular, does shared identity in partisan and religious affiliation between a judgeand a respondent increase court job approval and legitimacy evaluations? We employa survey experiment that manipulates judge religion and partisanship in a hypotheticallower court decision in a free exercise of religion case. We expect that shared identitybetween a judge and respondent will increase approval and legitimacy. Our study hasimplications for understanding the basis of power for life-tenured federal judges in ademocratic polity.
Understanding the Role of Senate Norms in Confirming Judges on the U.S. Courts of Appeals
(with Joshua Boston, Patrick Rickert, and James F. Spriggs)
The confirmation of lower federal court judges heavily depends on the application of two Senate norms: Senatorial Courtesy and the Blue Slip. But prior work largely ignores State Representation-a norm whereby each U.S. Courts of Appeals judgeship is assigned to a particular state in the Circuit. Given this norm, senators expect that the President will nominate someone from the same state as the departing circuit judge. However, presidents fail to follow this norm nearly 25 percent of the time. This research analyzes how state representation-specifically the president's decision to defy the norm-influences the confirmation process. We argue that ignoring state representation norms increases the level of conflict over a nominee. As a result, both previous and new home-state senators will have some sway over their colleagues. Our results reveal several implications of violating the norm of state representation. The (1) probability of the Senate confirming a nominee and (2) time to final action on a nomination are decreasing in the ideological distance between the previous home state senators and the president. Additionally, if the new home state senators reveal public opposition to a nomination, both (a) the likelihood of rejection and (b) time to final action increase.