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IDEOLOGY AND JUDICIAL DEFERENCE IN THE D.C. CIRCUIT
Author(s) -
Banks Christopher P.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
southeastern political review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1747-1346
pISSN - 0730-2177
DOI - 10.1111/j.1747-1346.1998.tb00513.x
Subject(s) - deference , ideology , supreme court , rulemaking , judicial deference , political science , law , judicial activism , separation of powers , agency (philosophy) , bureaucracy , certiorari , judicial review , politics , administrative law , law and economics , sociology , original jurisdiction , social science
This article examines the published opinions of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit—a key judicial forum for deciding administrative law appeals—to test the hypothesis that ideology is a principal element for understanding judicial control over federal agencies between 1970 and 1995. Prior studies focus on U.S. Supreme Court rulings imply, but do not directly test, the proposition that judicial deference to agencies is the product of an interactive relationship between key political variables. Using a non‐additive, “integrated” model of judicial behavior, the study confirms that judicial deference is an interactive ideological decision where the court's decision to defer is conditioned upon an interaction between the panel's composition and agency policy. Ideology, though, is not the sole explanation for court behavior since other non‐ideological variables contribute to deference as well. The D.C. Circuit is constrained, and defers less, by the “hard look” doctrine and landmark U.S. Supreme Court precedent. Even so, it defers more to agency rulemaking, making the type of agency proceeding at issue an important variable. Overall, these findings illustrate that circuit courts are significant sources of regulatory policy change and that they use ideology, along with other factors, to control the policy initiative of bureaucracies.