Integrating the Blackmun Papers into the Spaeth Databases

Washington University, Saint Louis MO

Investigators

Abstract

The Blackmun papers, released on March 4, 2004, span the 1971-1993 terms of the Court and are extremely important to the coding and entering of a complete and highly reliable set of data that encompasses all the preliminary and merit votes and associated variables from the second term of the Burger Court through the end of the eighth term of the Rehnquist Court, and to an expansion and successful completion of Spaeth's three-year grant (Jan 1, 2004-Dec. 31, 2006) to include in his NSF-funded databases additional data that are key to analyzing, modeling, and understanding the Court's agenda-setting process. This SGER is preparatory to a proposal to compile, analyze, code, and enter the relevant data from the papers of Justice Harry Blackmun into Spaeth's databases. The Blackmun papers are a terra incognita; we know only that they are voluminous and include virtually every document that Blackmun acquired in connection with his duties as an associate justice. We do not know how well they are organized for our purposes; if they are readily accessible; and how best to make copies under the constraints of time and cost. On the basis of our past experience, the costs of copying and supplying documents from the Library of Congress to Professor Spaeth have been a major budget item in collaborative proposals. This SGER will enable the researchers to prepare a budget that closely tracks the costs of copying the relevant documents.