Judicial Selection and State Gay and Reproductive Rights Decisions

Partisan cues, dynamic representation, and indirect accountability provide theoretical underpinnings for the influence of judicial selection and public opinion in state courts. It is unclear, however, how their effects change across different policy domains. We begin to address this gap by examining state gay and reproductive rights decisions. The effect of national public opinion is conditional on nonpartisan elections for gay rights decisions, whereas judges in retention systems are more responsive to state-level opinion. Partisan elections are the conduit for opinion in reproductive rights cases. This only partially supports the theoretical expectations, suggesting policy domain makes a difference.