Amount: $165,000 (total) over two years
Grant Provides: Funds to study the impact of campaign contributions on Texas Supreme Court decisions to grant review, on decisions on the merits, and on the votes of individual justices.
Grant Writers:
- Craig F. Emmert, Assistant Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, UT - Permian Basin
- M. V. Hood, III , Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Georgia
Summary:
Our study will analyze the impact of campaign contributions on Texas Supreme Court decisions to grant review, on decisions on the merits, and on the votes of individual justices.
The cost of campaigning for positions on state high courts has grown tremendously. Along with this trend, many have been quick to note that lawyers and corporate interests have been contribution to these candidates at unprecedented levels. Critics of judicial campaign contributions maintain that judges should be guided in their decisions by the law alone; they should not be unduly influenced by litigants, interest groups, and lawyers who contribute to their campaigns. Others argue that contributors are participating in the established judicial selection process and that it is difficult to show that contributions have an effect on court decisions.
This debate regarding the effect of campaign contributions on judicial decisions provides the starting point for the present study. Our study will examine approximately 6,500 petitions for review, 1,100 case decisions, and over 9,000 individual votes. We will develop comprehensive explanatory models for all three phases of judicial decision making; including variables to measure judicial ideology, the political environment, case issues, litigant status, attorney experience, and law firm size. These observations will then be merged with data on campaign contributions by litigants, attorneys, law firms, and interest groups for both appellants and respondents. We plan to apply advanced statistical methods, including the use of sample selection techniques to model both docket access and case outcomes simultaneously. In addition, we will also control for potential endogeneity issues by utilizing instruments for the campaign finance measures employed.
Our study will provide opportunities for students and UT - Permian Basin and the University of Georgia to learn about research through direct participation in the research process. In addition, our study will provide information on current debates over the use of partisan election for choosing judges. Building on the findings of prior research, our study offers a more rigorous empirical test of a direct linkage between the interests associated with judicial campaign contributions and the behavior of judges who received those contributions.
4901 E. University . Odessa, Texas 79762 . (432) 552-2020