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POLICY PREFERENCES OF JUSTICES AND PRESIDENTS
Author(s) -
HECK EDWARD V.,
SHULL STEVEN A.
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
law and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.534
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1467-9930
pISSN - 0265-8240
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9930.1982.tb00279.x
Subject(s) - presidential system , supreme court , voting , political science , civil rights , law , supreme court decisions , public administration , law and economics , economics , politics
Focusing on the issue of civil rights, this study examines the relationship between policy preferences of presidents and the votes of the Supreme Court justices they appointed. Through content analysis of presidential statements, relatively systematic measures of civil rights policy views for five recent presidents were obtained and compared with the voting records on civil rights of justices they appointed to the Supreme Court. The findings suggest that although a correspondence exists between presidential preferences and judicial votes, presidents have been only moderately successful in appointing justices whose votes reflect presidential preferences.