Symbiosis: republican presidents and the federalist society
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
Federalist Society influence in the nomination of federal judges presents an oppor- tunity to simultaneously study presidential decision-making, judicial politics, and interest group strategy. Burgeoning academic and popular interest in the Federalist Society acknowledges the group’s outsized influence on judicial nominations, particularly among Republican presidents, but has not yet elucidated why this connection persists and has grown. This project provides a possible explanation: the relationship between conservative presidents and the Federalist society is symbiotic. The group enjoys unprecedented access to the judicial nominations process, the in-group legitimacy such access affords, as well as ex-ante influence over judicial policymaking. In turn, Republican administrations enjoy a quicker and less costly search for young, reliably conservative nominees. To evaluate this theory, I collect and analyze data on Federalist Society membership or affiliation for all Republican-nominated Article III judicial nominees from the Reagan to Trump administrations. This represents a considerable improvement on past efforts by focusing on the selection phase as well by improving the measurement of Federalist Society affiliation. I find that different levels of association with the Federalist Society predicts variation in the politics of the selection process with the result conditioned by vacancy type. When controlling for other nominee characteristics and senate ideological variables, the data reveal that some levels of FedSoc association are significant, negative predictors of time from vacancy to nomination. When presidents choose judicial nominees close to the Federalist Society, the vacancies themselves are shorter, providing encouraging evidence for my theory.
Description
2024
License
Attribution 4.0 International