Accountability for Court Packing

Michael J. Nelson, Amanda Driscoll

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

How does the public respond to court-packing attempts? Longstanding accounts of public support for courts suggest voters retaliate against incumbents who seek to manipulate well-respected courts. Yet incumbents might strategically frame their efforts in bureaucratic terms to minimize the public's outcry or use court-packing proposals to activate a partisan base of support. Drawing on a series of survey experiments, we demonstrate that strategic politicians can minimize electoral backlash by couching court reform proposals in apolitical language, and institutional legitimacy's shielding effect dissolves in the face of shared partisanship. These results shed new light on how ambitious politicians might avoid electoral consequences for efforts to bend the judiciary to their will.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)290-311
Number of pages22
JournalJournal of Law and Courts
Volume11
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 24 2023

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Sociology and Political Science
  • Political Science and International Relations
  • Law

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