Inviting Congressional Action: A Study of Supreme Court Motivations in Statutory Interpretation

Lori Hausegger, Lawrence Baum

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

88 Scopus citations

Abstract

Theory: The Supreme Court's occasional "invitations" to Congress to reverse the Court's statutory decisions challenge two influential theories of the Court's behavior and thus merit attention.Hypotheses: Three alternative explanations for invitations are posited: low interest in certain cases on the part of the justices, a desire to maintain the Court's institutional standing, and a desire to achieve both good policy and good law.Methods: These alternative explanations are tested through a logit analysis of the Court's statutory decisions in the 1986 through 1990 terms; the dependent variable is the presence or absence of what we call a strong invitation to Congress in the majority opinion.Results: The results of the analysis give greatest support to the hypothesis that justices have an interest in achieving both good policy and good law. This finding underlines the need to take the Court's invitations into account in the debate over the impact of legal and policy considerations on Supreme Court decisions.
Original languageAmerican English
JournalAmerican Journal of Political Science
Volume43
Issue number1
StatePublished - Jan 1999
Externally publishedYes

EGS Disciplines

  • Political Science

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Inviting Congressional Action: A Study of Supreme Court Motivations in Statutory Interpretation'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this