Doctoral Dissertation Research: Shaping the Content of Majority Opinions on the U.S. Supreme Court

Michigan State University, East Lansing MI

Investigators

Abstract

The arguments contained within Supreme Court majority opinions determine legal policy. However, it remains unclear precisely who the most influential member is within each majority coalition. Existing research presents competing hypotheses about the most influential member on the Court, with many models predicting convergence to a single median member, while others suggest that the opinion author herself retains significant control. Despite these conflicting predictions, data to disentangle them do not exist. This project aims to address this deficiency by obtaining copies of each circulated majority opinion draft on the U.S. Supreme Court during the seventeen terms of the Burger Court. These data will supplement the Burger Court Opinion Writing Database, which contains information on all memoranda and opinion drafts that the justices circulated to their colleagues between the 1969 and 1985 terms. These data will be the basis for the creation of a new measure of accommodation on the Court. Using advances in text analysis software, and coding accommodation by matching explicit bargaining actions with changes in the content of the majority opinion drafts, this approach shows whose expressed preferences are incorporated into the opinion and provides the first empirical test to determine which members of the Court are influential in shaping the opinion content. As it will provide an unprecedented look into the opinion writing process, this project promises to improve our understanding of the collegial interactions that produce the Court's opinion. Combining these data with information on institutional factors, justice characteristics, and case facts, this research will provide insight into the development of the legal opinions that shape national policy. The new data will advance our understanding of the development of law, while carefully exploring the strategic actions by members of a collegial body constrained by its own membership, inter- and intra-branch politics, and legal considerations. The database from this project will be made available to scholars, allowing wide scholarly participation in reconsideration of strategies of Supreme Court decisionmaking.