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Legal Rasputins? Law Clerk Influence on Voting at the US Supreme Court

Author

Listed:
  • Adam Bonica
  • Adam Chilton
  • Jacob Goldin
  • Kyle Rozema
  • Maya Sen

Abstract

Supreme Court justices employ law clerks to help them perform their duties. We study whether these clerks influence how justices vote in the cases they hear. We exploit the timing of the clerkship hiring process to link variation in clerk ideology to variation in judicial voting. To measure clerk ideology, we match clerks to the universe of disclosed political donations. We find that clerks exert modest influence on judicial voting overall, but substantial influence in cases that are high-profile, legally significant, or close decisions. We interpret these results to suggest that clerk influence occurs through persuasion rather than delegation of decision-making authority.

Suggested Citation

  • Adam Bonica & Adam Chilton & Jacob Goldin & Kyle Rozema & Maya Sen, 2019. "Legal Rasputins? Law Clerk Influence on Voting at the US Supreme Court," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 35(1), pages 1-36.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jleorg:v:35:y:2019:i:1:p:1-36.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jleo/ewy024
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Bonica, Adam & Sen, Maya, 2017. "A Common-Space Scaling of the American Judiciary and Legal Profession," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(1), pages 114-121, January.
    2. Adam N. Glynn & Maya Sen, 2015. "Identifying Judicial Empathy: Does Having Daughters Cause Judges to Rule for Women's Issues?," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 59(1), pages 37-54, January.
    3. McCubbins, Mathew D & Noll, Roger G & Weingast, Barry R, 1987. "Administrative Procedures as Instruments of Political Control," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 243-277, Fall.
    4. Martin, Andrew D. & Quinn, Kevin M., 2002. "Dynamic Ideal Point Estimation via Markov Chain Monte Carlo for the U.S. Supreme Court, 1953–1999," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(2), pages 134-153, April.
    5. Adam Bonica, 2014. "Mapping the Ideological Marketplace," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 58(2), pages 367-386, April.
    6. Adam S. Chilton & Eric A. Posner, 2015. "An Empirical Study of Political Bias in Legal Scholarship," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(2), pages 277-314.
    7. Adam Bonica & Maya Sen, "undated". "A Common-Space Scaling of the American Judiciary and Legal Profession," Working Paper 345856, Harvard University OpenScholar.
    8. Ebonya L. Washington, 2008. "Female Socialization: How Daughters Affect Their Legislator Fathers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 311-332, March.
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    Cited by:

    1. Brian D. Feinstein & Jennifer Nou, 2023. "Strategic subdelegation," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(4), pages 746-817, December.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • K00 - Law and Economics - - General - - - General (including Data Sources and Description)
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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