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3 J.L. & Cts. 1 (2015)

handle is hein.journals/jlawct3 and id is 1 raw text is: Judicial Contributions to US National Policy Change since 1945 MATT GROSSMANN, Michigan State University B R E N D O N S W E D L O W, Northern Illinois University ABSTRACT How often, at what times, and on what issues do courts directly make policy or indirectly influence policy making by other branches of government? We assess the judicial contribution to policy change using 268 policy histories covering 14 issue areas of US domestic policy making from 1945 to 2004. Contrary to the prominent view that courts are relatively inconsequential policy-making institutions, we find that federal courts made or influenced nearly one in four significant federal policy changes. Courts directly made almost as many significant policies as the executive branch and indirectly influenced about as many significant policies in other branches as Congress. We also find that judicial policy making and influence are concentrated in a few time periods and issue areas. How often, at what times, and on what issues do US courts make policy or influence policy making in other branches of government? Public law scholars generally see courts as playing a limited and rarely independent role in policy making. Notably, these views are based on analysis of court cases rather than comparing judicial policy making and influence to that of the other two branches of government. We make the first direct comparison. We examine the universe of significant domestic policy changes across all branches of government in the post World War II period and assess how many involve the courts. In We would like to thank Mitch Pickerill, Rob Robinson, Ryan Black, Amy Steigerwalt, Steve Wasby, Todd Collins, Art Ward, David Klein, Jon Goldberg-Hiller, David T. Johnson, Valerie J. Martinez-Ebers, Chandra Hunter Swedlow, participants in the Midwest Political Science Association meeting, and various anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier iterations of this article; and Erik Jonasson, Matt Phelan, Haogen Yao, Martina Egerer, Erica Weiss, Michael Thom, Heta Mehta, Lindsay Vogelsberg, Chris Heffner, Anthony Clarke, and Fangxue Zheng for reading literature, collecting data, and other assistance with this project. Contact the corresponding author, Brendon Swedlow, at bswedlow@niu.edu. Journal of Law and Courts (Spring 2015) © 2015 by the Law and Courts Organized Section of the Anmerican Political Science Association. All rights reserved. 2164-6570/2015/0301-0007$10.00

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