Representation in State Supreme Courts

• Published date: 01 June 2014
• Date: 01 June 2014
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912913504500
• Author: Melinda Gann Hall
• Subject Matter: Articles

Political Research Quarterly

2014, Vol. 67(2) 335 –346

© 2013 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912913504500

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Article

Understanding linkages between citizens and govern-

ment, particularly the connections brought about by the

powerful force of elections, is fundamental to a science

of politics. Central to this enterprise are institutional

arrangements and other contextual contingencies that

enhance or obviate the representative function and shape

the impact of electoral politics in American democracy.

Beginning with classic studies of Congress (e.g.,

Mayhew 1974; Miller and Stokes 1963) through recent

work on state legislatures (e.g., Hogan 2008), political

scientists have established that the threat of electoral

reprisal induces members who wish to retain their seats to

take constituency preferences into account when casting

votes on controversial issues. However, certain circum-

stances sever this connection, including lame-duck status

derived from voluntary retirement, electoral defeat, pro-

gressive ambition, and term limits (e.g., Carey et al. 2006;

Jenkins and Nokken 2008). Essentially, terminal terms

break the “electoral shackles” (Rothenberg and Sanders

2000, 316) and produce a “Burkean shift” (Carey et al.

2006, 105) in elite behavior wherein members vote sin-

cerely rather than strategically to appease constituencies.1

Moreover, these concepts about legislatures appear to

describe term-limited governors and their fiscal policies

(Alt, Bueno de Mesquita, and Rose 2011).

In this project, I extend the focus on democratic poli-

tics and the role of institutions and other contextual forces

in shaping the representative function to state supreme

courts. Specifically, I use mandatory retirement provi-

sions as an analytical device to examine how electoral

politics forges a connection between public preferences

and judicial votes. The fundamental argument is that

electoral vulnerability provides a vital key for under-

standing linkages between citizen preferences and the

bench. When reelection is a goal, the effects of electoral

insecurity are observable, producing strategic votes that

better comport with constituency preferences. However,

terminal terms, which remove the electoral incentive,

sharply attenuate these effects. In short, popular judicial

decisions are the product of goals, institutional arrange-

ments, and external threats.

In this regard, the states’ highest courts are intrigu-

ingly enigmatic. Unlike the other political branches, state

supreme courts lack an explicit representative function

and are steeped in normative expectations of indepen-

dence and counter-majoritarianism. At the same time, the

vast majority of justices must face voters regularly to

retain their seats in elections that are at least as competi-

tive as elections for many other offices in the United

States (Dubois 1980; Hall 2001a, 2007a; Kritzer 2011).

Moreover, these justices decide controversial cases within

a significant range of alternative institutional settings and

political contexts that have the potential to amplify or

diminish external forces influencing individual and col-

lective decisions, including pressures from the electoral

arena (e.g., Brace and Hall 1995, 1997). Finally, extant

504500PRQXXX10.1177/1065912913504500

research-article2013

Hall

1Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

Corresponding Author:

Melinda Gann Hall, Department of Political Science, Michigan State

University, 368 Farm Lane, S303, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA.

Email: hallme@msu.edu

Representation in State Supreme Courts:

Evidence from the Terminal Term

Melinda Gann Hall1

Abstract

This research capitalizes on the analytical opportunity created by mandatory retirement provisions to explore the

nature of the electoral connection in state supreme courts and to illustrate how changes in institutional context

can modify the decisional propensities of political elites and reshape their fundamental roles. Specifically, this work

demonstrates that mandatory retirement obviates the representative function by disconnecting key mechanisms

through which public preferences are translated into judicial votes: threat conditions that elevate the risk of electoral

censure. In state supreme courts, popular votes are in part strategic and result from a complex interaction of goals,

institutions, and external pressures.

Keywords

state supreme courts, judicial behavior, mandatory retirement, death penalty