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The Impact of Supreme Court Activity on the Judicial Agenda
Author(s) -
Rice Douglas
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
law and society review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.867
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1540-5893
pISSN - 0023-9216
DOI - 10.1111/lasr.12056
Subject(s) - supreme court , law , political science , supreme court decisions , certiorari , precedent , original jurisdiction , majority opinion , concurring opinion , perspective (graphical) , artificial intelligence , computer science
When the S upreme C ourt takes action, it establishes national policy within an issue area. A traditional, legal view holds that the decisions of the C ourt settle questions of law and thereby close the door on future litigation, reducing the need for future attention to that issue. Alternatively, an emerging interest group perspective suggests the C ourt, in deciding cases, provides signals that encourage additional attention to particular issues. I examine these competing perspectives of what happens in the federal courts after S upreme C ourt decisions. My results indicate that while S upreme C ourt decisions generally settle areas of law in terms of overall litigation rates, they also introduce new information that leads to increases in the attention of judges and interest groups to those particular issues.