Browsing by Subject "Supreme Court"
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Item The Amicus curiae at oral argument: new evidence of how and why third parties shape Supreme Court decisions.(2009-10) Roberts, Matthew M. C.In this dissertation, I examine the intersection of two phenomena in the judicial world: oral argument and the amicus curiae. I believe that friends of the court who have received permission to appear at oral argument may be key to understanding the influ-ence that third parties can have on the Supreme Court. This project examines oral amici from two different angles: first, from the point-of-view of explaining why they appear in cases; and second, from the perspective of whether oral amici have a recognizable impact upon the Court's decision making. The results in both instances are positive, suggesting that amici play an informational role for the Court, and that their presence does impact both the direction of the Court's decision as well as the votes of individual justices. In the conclusion, I discuss the relevance of these insights for the literature on swing voters and the future of appointments to the high court under the Obama administration.Item Institutional rules and decision making on the U.S. Supreme Court.(2009-08) Ringsmuth, Eve M.The U.S. Supreme Court, an unelected body, wields authority over issues at the heart of our democratic system (e.g., voting rights, abortion, etc.). This project examines how the Court’s rules and norms influence the choices justices make. Using pre-existing datasets and previously unanalyzed archival data from the justices’ personal papers, I investigate the influence of the decision-making process on the positions justices take, both at conference and on the final merits, and how justices decide which cases to accept for review. Given justices’ unelected status, life tenure, and penchant for secrecy, it is important that we improve our understanding of judicial decision-making. My dissertation seeks to further our understanding of the interplay between institutional rules and decision-making on the Supreme Court.Item Inventing the Rule of Law: A Rhetorical Analysis of U.S. Supreme Court Per Curiam Opinions(2016-05) Bell, ShelbyThe rule of law is the U.S. Supreme Court’s justification for action, and because of the authority given to the Supreme Court in U.S. legal culture, the Court’s speech about the rule of law shapes the lived experience of legal subjects. Per curiam opinions (per curiam meaning “by the court”) obscure the identity of the author of the opinion, and are used relatively rarely, indicating that this designation reserved for exceptional cases per curiam opinions, and for these reasons per curiam opinions can serve as limit cases for studying the rule of law. This dissertation conducts rhetorical analysis of three U.S. Supreme Court per curiam opinions in order to explore changes in the meaning of the rule of law: Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), DeFunis v. Odegaard (1974), and Bush v. Gore (2000). The per curiam opinion in Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) raised questions about the power of the courts to enact the law because the rhetoric of the opinion showed the law as correcting the Court’s mistaken decision in Whitney v. California (1927). The per curiam label, however, attributed responsibility for the decision in Brandenburg to the Court, thus creating conflicting accounts of where judicial power lies. In the Supreme Court’s DeFunis v. Odegaard (1974) per curiam opinion the rule of law appeared as a bureaucracy as procedural rules were used to trump substantive issues. The per curiam opinion may have aimed to make the opinion more palatable, but for some audiences it appeared as cover for darker motives. The Bush v. Gore (2000) per curiam opinion aimed to justify the Court’s involvement in the Florida vote for presidential electors, but the rhetoric was missing evidence and support. The per curiam label obscured the facts of authorship making it impossible to hold the author(s) accountable for the opinion, and for the kind of rule of law the opinion promoted. Comparing the rule of law in each of these opinions to the Court’s foundational Marbury v. Madison (1803) opinion makes it possible to consider whether these opinions use the “rule of law” to create the conditions of possibility for a deliberative democracy or whether the “rule of law” is used as an crude justification for authoritarian power.Item Like, Share, and Comment #SCOTUS: Public Engagement with the U.S. Supreme Court on Facebook(2022-06) Houston, RachaelChapter 1: Where’s SCOTUS?: An Exploration of News about the U.S. Supreme Court on Facebook Decades of scholarship reveal that the public learns about the U.S. Supreme Court through media and, particularly, through traditional media like newspapers and television. However, new media, such as Facebook, have not been explored as means for how people may learn about the Court. In this paper, I consider people’s interactions with the Court through Facebook. Specifically, I examine whether, and to what extent, users of this platform are exposed to the Court on their Facebook Feeds and whether this exposure influences users’ perceptions of the Court’s legitimacy. This is an important inquiry, as Facebook may play a role in shaping the public’s support for the Court and offer a new and unique way for the public to engage with, and learn about, the nation’s court of last resort. Chapter 2: Framing Support for the Court: The Role of Media Frames on Facebook News Feeds In today’s social media environment, Americans learn more and more about federal institutions on Facebook. This includes the U.S. Supreme Court, a branch of government that is typically not on the minds of citizens. In this chapter, I argue that Facebook posts about the Court’s decision-making process have the ability to shape people’s support for it. To make this argument, I expose individuals to mock Facebook Feeds to determine how exposure to various decision-making frames affect people’s support for the Court. This study has significant implications for the Court’s legitimacy moving forward, as Facebook is a powerful force that has the ability to shape public attitudes toward a federal institution. Chapter 3: Cue the Court Support: The Effects of Partisan News and Social Endorsement Cues on Facebook As Facebook users scroll through their Feeds, they rely on cues to make decisions about what information to process and how deeply to process it, which ultimately contributes to what they learn through the platform. There are two primary cues that users rely on when processing news on Facebook: source cues and social endorsement cues, such as likes, shares, and comments. In this chapter, I seek to answer two main research questions. First, are individuals more likely to engage with political Facebook posts about the U.S. Supreme Court when the news source of the information aligns with their partisanship and when the post contains social endorsements? Second, do news source and social endorsement cues influence the extent to which people process political information about the Court in the form of its legitimacy? To answer these questions, I expose individuals to mock Facebook posts about the Court, varying the news source and whether the posts contain social endorsements. Ultimately, this study provides a more detailed look at how cues unique to the Facebook environment influence (or do not influence) Court support.Item Senatorial deliberation and Supreme Court nominations(2014-08) Gregory, CharlesAlthough senators actively participate in the confirmation debates, existing research that examines the confirmation debates has questioned whether the Senate is capable of fulfilling its constitutional duties. Unfortunately, this research does not fully investigate why senators participate in these important debates. To investigate the factors that influence senatorial deliberation I build on previous research that describes confirmation votes as opportunities for position taking and formally models the selection stage. I argue these two strands of research provide a framework for understanding what factors influence senatorial deliberation across the Supreme Court appointment process. Overall, I find strong support for the hypothesis that senators strategically engage Supreme Court confirmation debates. More specifically, I find political, electoral, and institutional considerations affect the willingness of senators to participate in these important debates.Item Silha Bulletin(University of Minnesota, 2024-10-03) University of Minnesota: Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and LawThe Silha Bulletin is a publication of the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law, located within the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.Item Silha Bulletin, Fall 2020, Volume 26, No. 1(University of Minnesota, The Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law, 2021-01) University of Minnesota: Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law; Kirtley, Jane, E.; Anderson, Jonathan; Memmel, Scott; Hargrove, ElaineThe Silha Bulletin is a publication of the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law, a research center housed within the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The Bulletin is published three times a year.Item The Supreme Court and Health Reform(2012-07-09) Keefer, Scott; Kofman, Mila; McKechnie, Andrew; Jacobs, Lawrence; Hage, DaveItem The Supreme Court and the politics of language: an empirical investigation.(2011-10) Vecera, Vincent BenjaminThis dissertation argues that existing explanations of judicial power emphasizing limits on the ability of the judiciary to change society miss an important mechanism of judicial influence over the language of political discourse. Working from research in empirical judicial politics, political psychology, and political theory, this dissertation argues that by promoting constitutional language in select issue domains, Supreme Court majorities can influence public discourse by promoting or discouraging the use of constitutional language in mainstream media coverage of political controversies. I report the results of two case studies using newspaper editorials and articles as well as other communications media. I find strong evidence for judicial influence over political language in mainstream media coverage of both the abortion and gun regulation debates.