Competing Constraints: State Court Responses to Supreme Court Decisions and Legislation on
Wages and Hours
Author(s): Valerie Hoekstra
Source: Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 2, (Jun., 2005), pp. 317-328
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. on behalf of the University of Utah
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Competing Constraints:
State Court Responses to Supreme Court Decisions
and Legislation on Wages and Hours
VALERIE HOEKSTRA, ARIZONASTATEUNIVERSITY
This articleexaminesstatesupremecourtimplementationof SupremeCourtprecedentwhen decidingcases
challengingstate legislation.While previousresearchprovidesa wealth of insightinto how state contextual
and institutionalfeaturesconstrainstate court decisionmakingand how lower courts respondto Supreme
Courtprecedent,verylittleresearchexplicitlyexaminesstatecourtdecisionmakingwhen both constraintsare
present. By integrating the findings of previous research, I develop and test hypotheses about the effect of these
differentactorson state court decisionmaking.The resultsshow that state courtsare indeed constrainedby
both stateand federalactors.The resultsalso suggestthattheremaybe instanceswherepoliciesareso salient
to both state actorsand to the U.S. SupremeCourtthat the influenceof the state court'sown policy preferences may be minimal.The findingsprovideimportantevidence about the importanceof competingconstraintson statesupremecourtdecisionmaking.
and its abilityto review and rejectstate court decisions, and
constraints from state actors who may rewrite legislation
and, often, remove a judge from office. The one projectthat
attempts to capture both levels of constraintlooks at state
court decisions on abortion following Roe v. Wade(Brace,
Hall, and Langer2000). Theirresearchfinds that state court
decisionmakingis affected by the state-level environment,
but only to the extent that the judges' fates are tied to that
environment. However, they also find that U.S. Supreme
Courtprecedenthas no effect on state court decisionmaking
(Brace,Hall, Langer2000). From this single study, can we
conclude that Supreme Court precedent is meaningless to
the decisionmakingamong state courtjudges? Or, is it possible that constraints from the Supreme Court as well as
from within the state weigh upon the decisionmaking of
state courtjudges? If so, which weighs more heavily?These
are the questions addressedin this work.
Recentresearchprovidesus with considerableleverageon
these questions.First,it is generallyacceptedthatjudges are
politicalactorswith policy preferencesthat they would prefer
to see enactedinto law (Brace,Hall,Langer2000; Epsteinand
Knight 1998; Langer2002, Segaland Spaeth2002). Justices
on the United StatesSupremeCourthave wide latitudeto act
upon theirsincerepreferencesdue to the insularityand independence they enjoy Judges on lower courts have considerably less freedomto act upon their sincerepreferences.First,
most state courtjudges do not serve for life. Thus, the institutionalrules for the selection and retentionof judges limits,
to varying degrees, the institutionalindependence of state
supremecourtjudges from other state politicalactors(Brace
and Hall 1995, 1997; Brace,Hall, and Langer2000; Canon
and Johnson 1999; Epstein, Knight and Shvetsova 2002;
Langer2002). Moreover,the decisions of both state and federaljudges are subjectto reviewby the SupremeCourt,and
judges do not like to see their decisions overturned(Baum
or decades, scholars have been interested in studying the implementation of U.S. Supreme Court decisions by judges on lower courts.' Most researchconcludes that the possibility of review by the Supreme Court
effectively constrains lower court decisionmaking. This
researchtypically examines decisionmaking on the United
States Courts of Appeals. Along side this sizable literature
has grown an equally large and impressive body of work
examining the state-level institutional and contextual constraints on state supreme court judges.2 This work finds
that state institutional and contextual features affect decisionmaking on the state high courts in interesting and
often complex ways.
Surprisingly,little research attempts to combine these
two lines of work to examine decisionmaking on state
supreme courts when both constraints are present-constraintsfromthe U.S. SupremeCourtin the way of precedent
F
1 For
2
example, see Baum (1976, 1978); Benesh and Reddick (2002);
Canon and Johnson (1999); Giles and Walker (1975); Gruhl (1980);
Songer and Sheehan (1994); Songer, Segal, Cameron (1994); Tarr
(1977).
For example, see Braceand Hall (1990, 1997); Braceand Langer(2001),
Hall (1987, 1992, 1995); Hall and Brace(1992); Hays and Glick (1997),
Langer(2002), Songer and Tabrizi(1999).
NOTE: This articlewas presented as a paper at the 2003 annual meeting
of the MidwestPoliticalScienceAssociation,Chicago.I would like
to thank Chris Bonneau, Bradley Canon, LauraLanger,Michael
Nickelsburgand the anonymous reviewersfor their helpful comments during preparationof this manuscript and Lee Epstein,
Olga Shvetsova, and Jack Knight for generously sharing data. I
would also like to thank TobiasGibson, Scott Hendrikson,Andrea
Russo,Johnna Shackelford,and KarenShafer for assistancewith
data collection.
PoliticalResearchQuarterly,Vol. 58, No. 2 (June2005) pp. 317-328
317
318
1976, 1978; Beneshand Reddick2002; Canon andJohnson
1999; Songer,Segaland Cameron1994).
Verylittle researchattemptsto incorporatethese different
constraintsinto a single study of state supreme court decisionmaking(but see Brace,Hall, and Langer2000). Instead,
scholars either focus on the intra-state questions (state
courts and the state political context), or on the intra-judicial questions (lower courts and SupremeCourt).Moreover,
virtually every empirical study of judicial decisionmaking
looks to recent years with very little attempt to understand
whether our theories about judicial behavior are based on
analysis of modern courts. To examine decisionmaking
under both constraintsand during a differenttime period, I
examine state supreme court decisions on the constitutionality of state minimum wage and maximum hours legislation in the earlypart of the twentieth century (1900-1940).
As with capital punishment and abortion politics over the
last few decades, maximum hours and minimum wage legislation during this time were highly salient and issues for
which different institutions of government, at all levels,
were involved. The United States Supreme Court often
handed down decisions strikingstate and federallegislation
coming from both state and federalcourts. At other times,
the Court was more supportive of such legislation and
upheld differenthours and wage regulations.
Since the issue in these cases involves actors from all
levels of government, it provides a rich opportunity to
examine the relativeconstraintsplaced on state courtjudges
as they decide on the constitutionalityof state legislation.It
also presents the opportunityto examine the dynamic relationship between state courts and the United States
SupremeCourt. During this time period, which spans close
to forty nears, Supreme Court precedent on the states'
authorityto regulatein the area of hours and wages was in
a greatdeal of flux. Thus, we can examinewhether and how
state courts responded to these shifts in precedent.
The questions addressedin this study are importantfor
many reasons. First and foremost, while research at the
state level provides insights into the importance of constraintswithin a state, much of it does not explicitly examine statejudicial review of legislation, and when it does, it
either fails to incorporate measures of the larger political
context, or more importantly,changes in Supreme Court
precedent. Second, this research is important since the
reason why justices on the United States Supreme Court
appearrelativelyfree to vote their sincere preferencesis not
entirely clear-a comparativeapproachis needed to parse
out the precise explanations (Brace and Hall 1995, 1997;
Brace, Hall, and Langer 2000; Langer 2002). Third, the
findings from this research should also shed light on the
extent to which state courts may also serve as an independent source of constraint upon legislative action.
Finally, since the issues were as politically and legally
salient at the time as are some of the most contentious
issues today (e.g., capitalpunishment and abortion),it provides a unique opportunity to learn whether our theories
about judicial behavior withstand the test of time.
POLITICAL RESEARCH QUARTERLY
A BRIEF HISTORY OF MINIMUM WAGE AND
MAXIMUM HOURS LEGISLATION IN THE STATES
Although a thorough overview of state legislation and
U.S. SupremeCourtdecisions on maximumhours and minimum wage legislation is beyond the scope of this article, I
include a very brief discussion in order to clarifythe kinds
of issues involved in these cases and the changingnatureof
SupremeCourtprecedent.
During the early part of the twentieth century, a variety of forces, such as industrialization, urbanization, and
the progressivemovement converged to increase state and
federal legislation aimed at regulating the conditions of
American workers (Brandeis 1935, Baer 1978, Epstein
1985). Many states enacted legislation to improve working conditions-particularly for women, children, and
men engaged in inherently dangerous occupations (e.g.,
mining). Much of the early legislation sought to protect
workers by limiting the hours of certain classes of workers, often to ten hours a day. States typically singled out
groups-either those engaged in the most dangerous professions such as mining and smelting, or those who were
thought to need the most protection from the
state-women and children (Baer 1978; Brandeis 1935;
Epstein and Walker 2000). States justified the legislation
as falling within their police powers.
The second wave of reforms included minimum wage
legislation.Like the earlierhours regulations,statesjustified
wage legislationas fallingunder their police powers. For the
wage legislation,states moved beyond the simple safetyjustificationand arguedthat the state also had a responsibility
to make sure that workers, usually women, were paid a
wage sufficientfor maintaininga healthyand morallifestyle.
Although the Supreme Court was initially reluctant to
accept minimum wage legislationas fallingunder the states'
police powers, they ultimately recognized the connection
and gave the states latitude to enact such regulations.
During this time period, many states enacted legislation
despite strongand/or contradictoryprecedentfrom the U.S.
Supreme Court as to whether such legislation would be
upheld or overturned. The chronology of the Supreme
Court's decisions in this area is highlighted in Table 1.
Included are all United States SupremeCourt cases dealing
with wages and hours that were decided between 1898 and
1937. Based on the Court's support for these policies, I
divide this time frame into five distinct periods indicating
whether the Court is supportive or opposed to the states'
authority to regulate in the area of hours and/or wages
under its general police powers. The information in this
table is used laterin the analysisin orderto develop a measure of SupremeCourt precedent.
THEORY AND HYPOTHESES
The extant research on judicial decisionmaking shows
that judges are motivated by their policy goals. However,
the ability of judges below the U.S. Supreme Court to
319
COMPETINGCONSTRAINTS
TABLE1
SUPREMECOURTPRECEDENT
Time Period Signal SupremeCourt Case
1898-1905
+
+
1906-1907
-
1908-1923
1924-1936
1937-1940
Decision
The Holden Perio
Holdenv. Hardy,169 U. S. 366 (1898)
Upholds Utah law on miners hours.
Atkinsv. Kansas,191 U.S. 207 (1903)
Upholds state regulationof hours of workers on
public works.
The Lochner PericdR
Lochnerv. New York,198 U.S. 45 (1905)
RejectsNew Yorklaw regulatinghours of bakers.
The Muller Period
Ellisv. UnitedStates,206 U.S. 246 (1907)
Upholds federalpublic works law.
Mullerv. Oregon,208 U.S. 412 (1908)
Upholds Oregon law on maximum hours for women
in laundries.
+
Baltimoreand OhioRailCo.v. ICC,
Upholds federallaw regulatinghours of railroad
221 U.S. 612 (1911)
employees.
+
Hawleyv. Walker,232 U.S. 718 (1914)
Upholds Connecticutlaw on women'shours.
+
232 U.S. 674 (1914)
Rileyv. Massachusetts,
Upholds Massachusettslaw on women'shours.
+
Millerv. Wilson,236 U.S. 373 (1915)
Upholds Californialaw on women'shours.
+
236 U.S. 385 (1915)
Bosleyv. McLaughlin,
Upholds Californialaw on women'shours.
+
Buntingv. Oregon,243 U.S. 426 (1917)
Upholds Oregon law limiting hours of men in mill,
factoryor manufacturing.
+
Wilsonv. New, 234 U.S. 332 (1917)
Upholds Adamson law regulatingwages on railroad.
+
Stettlerv. O'Hara,243 U.S. 629 (1917)
Upholds Oregon minimum wage law for women
(by an equally divided vote)
The Adkins Period
Adkins v. Children'sHospital, 261 U.S, 525
RejectsD.C. law regulatingwages for women and
children.
(1923)
- CharlesWolffPackingCo. v. Courtof
RejectsKansaslaw regulatingwages.
IndustrialRelationsof theStateof Kansas,
(1923)
+
Radicev. New York,264 U.S. 292 (1924)
Upholds New Yorklaw relatingto women'shours
(night work).
Murphy v. Sardell, 269 U.S. 530 (1925)
RejectsArizonaminimum wage law.
- Connally v. General ConstructionCo.,
Rejectsstate prevailingwage contract.
269 U.S. 530 (1925)
- Donham v. West-Nelson Manufacturing,
RejectsArkansasminimum wage law.
273 U.S. 657 (1927)
- Morehead v. New Yorkex rel. Tipaldo,
RejectsNew Yorkminimum wage law.
298 U.S. 587 (1936)
+
+
+
The West Coast Hotel Period
WestCoastHotelv. Parrish,300 U.S. 379
Upholds Washingtonminimum wage law.
(1936)
freely act upon those goals is conditioned on the institutional rules and the preferencesof other actors (Braceand
Hall 1995; Brace,Hall, and Langer2000; Canon and Johnson 1999; Langer 2002). Judges on state supreme courts
are constrained by state institutions that induce strategic
behavior and by U.S. Supreme Court preferences. These
simple points underscore each of the hypotheses developed below regarding the influence of the state political
context and Supreme Court precedent on state judicial
decisionmaking.
StateCourtIdeology
A primarygoal of all judges, regardlessof level, is to see
their policy preferencesetched into law (Brace,Hall, Langer
2000, Epstein and Knight 1998; Langer 2002, Segal and
Spaeth 2002). Even though they are constrainedby other
actors, the ideology of state courtjudges ought to influence
how they decide these cases. Thus, my first and most basic
hypothesis predicts that state court ideology will affect the
state courts'decisions.
320
320
State Court Ideology Hypothesis: Thegreaterthe support
for laborpoliciesamongthejusticeson thestatecourt,the
morelikelythatcourtwill upholdthe legislation.
RESEARCH
POLITICAL
POLITICAL
RESEARCH
QUARTERLY
QUARTERLY
U.S. SupremeCourtprecedentsupportslegislationand
morelikelyto overturnwhenU.S. SupremeCourtprecedentopposessuchlegislation.
TheRoleof SupremeCourtPrecedent
PoliticalEnvironment/Public
Preferences
Much of the researchon lower court implementationof
Supreme Court precedent finds that lower court judges
(usually federalcourt judges) fear being overturnedby the
SupremeCourt.Even when the probabilityis relativelylow,
lower court judges appear to heed the possibility that the
Supreme Court will review and overturn their decisions.
Explanationsfor this fear typically refer to the reputation
costs associated with being overturned by the Supreme
Court (Baum 1976, 1978; Benesh and Reddick 2002;
Canon and Johnson 1999; Songer, Segal, and Cameron
1994). Thus, Supreme Court decisions are typicallyimplemented by these lower courtjudges, especiallyas the probabilityof reviewincreases(Baum 1976, 1978, 1980; Benesh
and Reddick2002; Songerand Sheehan 1990; Johnson and
Canon 1984; Songer,Segal and Cameron1994; Songerand
Tabrizi1999). However, since much of the extant research
does not explicitly examine state court decisions on state
legislation, it is not entirely clear whether the general pattern will emerge as stronglyor at all.
The researchon the hierarchicalrelationshipbetween the
U.S. SupremeCourtand the United StatesCourtsof Appeals
often relieson agencytheory.Applyingagencytheoryto state
In the judicialhierarsupremecourts is less straightforward.
chy, state courts are bound by U.S. Supreme Court rulings
and the SupremeCourtretainsthe authorityto review state
court decisions-just as it has to reviewfederalappealscourt
decisions. However, since these are primarilystate actors,
should we expect them to care about the possibility of the
SupremeCourtoverturningtheir decisions?Or, are the constraintsfromwithin a state strongenough to overwhelmany
negativeconsequencesfrombeing overturned?
Critical to agency theory is that there must be some
probabilityof being overturned,otherwise the agent would
simply act upon his or her own preferences(Songer,Segal,
Cameron 1994). Thus, in low salience issues, state court
judges might be able to avoid U.S. SupremeCourtscrutiny.
This most likely is not the case in the areaof wage and hours
law in the early part of the twentieth century.This legislation was incredibly controversialat the time. Any decision
incongruent with Supreme Court preferenceswould likely
be salient to the Supreme Court. In addition, at least in
recent times, the Supreme Court appears more likely to
overturnlegislationwhen the state is a party than when the
federal government is a party (Epstein et al. 1996). Thus,
just as we should expect circuit court judges to heed the
policy directives of the Supreme Court, we should also
expect statesupremecourts to be mindful of SupremeCourt
precedentand awareof the possibility of being overturned.
Scholars of state court behavior have long emphasized
the importanceof state environmentalfactorsas influences
on state court decisionmaking (Atkins and Glick 1976;
Canon and Jaros 1970; Canon and Baum 1981; Jaros and
Canon 1971; Giles and Walker1975; Glickand Vines 1973;
Braceand Hall 1990). Some of this researchemphasizesthe
economic and demographicconditions of the state (Atkins
and Glick 1976;Canon and Baum 1981), other research
focuses on political forces, such as the partisancompetition
of the coordinatebranchesof government(Atkinsand Glick
1976; Brace and Hall 1995, 1997; Songer and Tabrizi
1999). Morerecently,scholarshave been aided by the availabilityof directmeasuresof public opinion (Brace,Hall, and
Langer2000; Songer and Tabrizi1999). What each shares
is the idea that the political values, ideology, or culture of
the state may have discernibleeffects on statejudicial decisionmaking.Extendingthis theory to wages and hours, state
court judges from states with a more progressive poltical
environment might be more likely to uphold minimum
wage and maximum hours legislation thanjudges in states
where the political environment is less supportive of progressivepolicies.3
However, the mechanism for the transmission of the
political context onto court decisionmakingis not always
very well specified. Some researchexpects the politicalenvironmentto be directlytranslatedinto court decisions. Since
judges are political actorswho would alwayspreferto enact
their preferencesinto law, there is little reason to expect
public opinion uniformly and automaticallyto affect state
court judges (see Brace and Hall 1995; 1997; Brace, Hall,
and Langer 2000; Langer 2002). Instead, recent research
makes a convincing case that featuresof the political environment do affectjudges, but that this effect is contingent
upon the extent to which the judges are tied to that environment (Brace and Hall 1995; Brace, Hall, and Langer
2000; Langer2002; Songer and Tabrizi1999). The reasoning is that justices are motivated to maintain their seat on
the state high court--they may need to set aside their own
policy preferencesin order to retain their seat (Brace and
Hall1995; Hall 1995, 1999, 2001; Langer2002).
Thus, the effectof public supportfor wage and hours regulations on judicial decisionmakingshould be conditioned
on whether the justices must face the public for reelection.
Public support for progressivepolicies is not expected to
Supreme Court Constraint Hypothesis: State supreme
courtsshouldbe most likely to upholdlegislationwhen
3 In this article,I focus on one particularelement of the political environment-the extent to which the state has adopted variouspolicies associated with the progressive movement. Other variables I considered as
measuresof the state politicalenvironmentincluded support for the ProgressiveParty'spresidentialcandidatein 1912 and 1924. However,these
are static measuresthat provide only a snapshot of state progressivism.
321
321
COMPETING
CONSTRAINTS
CONSTRAINTS
COMPETING
have a uniform or independent effect on state court decisionmaking.However,in stateswhere the judges are subject
to reelection, state supreme court opinions ought to reflect
the degree of support for those policies in the state.4
Progressive/RetentionElection Hypothesis: State court
whenthere
judgesshouldbemorelikelytoupholdlegislation
in
the
state and
is greatersupportfor progressive
policies
wherethejudgesare retainedthroughpopularelections.
In additionto these primaryhypotheses, I also test the effect
of othervariables,such as the facts of the case, the age of the
law, and whether it is a state law or a city ordinance.However,my primaryinterestin this projectis in testingthe constraining effect of the state political context as well as
Supreme Court precedent. In the following section, I discuss the data sources and measurementof variables.
DATA AND MEASUREMENT
DependentVariable
StateSupremeCourt.In the analysisI examinestate high
court decisions on maximum hours and minimum wage
laws between 1900 and 1940.5 I created a single variable
measuring whether the state high court: (1) upholds/
expands or (2) rejects/limits hours or wages legislation.
Thus, the unit of analysisis a state court decision.6Thereare
a total of 121 cases, the majority of which are explicitly
decided on constitutionalgrounds.7In 58.7 percent of the
4
Unfortunately,I am unable to test the conditionaleffectsof other features
of the state political environment.During this time period, the majority
of statesuse partisanor nonpartisanelections to retaintheirjudges. Very
few use some form of legislative,gubernatorialor meritprocedure.Thus,
I am unable to test whether these other institutional retention procedures, interacted with different actors policy preferences, affect state
court decisionmaking.
5 The data are from Brandeis(1935) and from a Lexis-Nexissearch of the
full text of state high court cases using the following searchphrases:minimum w/5 wage or wages, maximum w/5 hour or hours, hours of work,
and fair labor. This search produced many cases not relevantto either
wage or hours legislation.Additionalcases were identified through citations within cases. Each case was read by two people: the author and a
trainedresearchassistantto ensure a high degree of reliability.
6 I was unable to disaggregatethe cases down to the individualjudges vote
because not all cases list the justices who participated.
7 Of the 121 cases in the
analysis, 102 (84.3 percent) were decided on
state or federalconstitutionalgrounds. Of those 102 cases, 64 (62.7 percent) were decided on both state and federalconstitutionalgrounds, 21
(20.6 percent) on state constitutional grounds, and 17 (16.7 percent)
exclusively on federal constitutional grounds. The justification for
including cases decided on statutory or state constitutionalgrounds is
that parties presented federalconstitutionalclaims, particularlythe due
process argument, throughout the time period. There was also a great
deal of variation in the extent to which the state court opinions
explained the parties'argumentsin their decisions. Another reason to
include these cases, is that many of the cases were decided on provisions
of the state constitution that were very similar to federal constitutional
provisions (e.g., a state due process clause). In these cases the state
courts often relied on federal cases to interprettheir own due process
cases, the statecourtsupheld (or expanded)the legislationin
questionand in 41.3 percentthey rejectedor limited the law.
The cases came from a total of 35 states. Illinois had the
greatestnumber of cases (13) followed closely by New York
(11) and Kansas(10). Included in the analysis are all cases
challenginga law (or the applicationof that law) regulating
the hours or wages of the following groups of individuals:
miners, workers on public works projects, women, men
engaged in certain professions, or a generally applicable
law8 Obviously,these cases are different.In orderto account
for these differences,I include a measureof case facts in the
analysis. I discuss that variablebelow.
Variables
Independent
As the StateCourtIdeology Hypothesispredicts,the ideology of the state court should affectthe decision to uphold
or rejectthe legislation.All else equal, courts with pro-labor
judges should be more likely to uphold legislation regulating the hours and wages of workers.Unfortunately,the typical measuresof judicial ideology are not availablefor state
court judges during this time frame. These measures are
usually derivedfromfactorssuch as the politicalpartyof the
judge, or in the case of federaljudges, the partisanshipof
the appointing president. Measuresof Supreme Court ideology, such as the Segal/Covermeasure (Segal and Cover
1989, Segalet al., 1995) are derived fromnewspapereditorials prior to confirmation.Thus, these other measurestend
to be only proxies of the judges' preferencesand not direct
measures of the actual preferences.Instead of adopting a
similarapproach,I createda measureof StateCourtIdeology
by looking at how these state supreme courts actuallyruled
on similarkinds of labor cases.
Using Lexis-Nexis,I randomly selected and coded state
supreme court decisions on labor legislation.9From these
clause. Thus, excluding these cases might underestimatethe impact of
Supreme Court precedent. Finally,since state courts might try to avoid
Supreme Court precedent (especially when it found a constitutional
violation in the legislation)by deciding the cases on state constitutional
or statutorygrounds, I also examined whether there was any relationship between U.S. Supreme Court support for the legislation, state
supreme court support for the legislation, and the state court'sdecision
to decide cases on non-federal constitutional grounds. There was no
apparentpattern of such an effect-the state courts' decisions to decide
on statutory or state constitutional grounds appears independent of
Supreme Court actions.
8 I exclude cases dealing with child labor regulations for two reasons.
First, these provisionswent beyond hours and wages and include regulations involving age, education, what kinds of work they could engage
in, seasonalexceptions, and others. Thus, it would have been difficultto
classify these cases. Also, many of these laws and cases were enacted or
heard prior to 1900. There simply is not enough reliable data for the
independentvariablesto extend backwardsto cover earliertime periods.
9 I used the following keywords to select cases: "masterand servant"or
workeror workmanor workmen, or employe!w/5 injuryor liability.For
case/yearswhere there were 25 or fewer cases, I randomlyselected and
coded five cases. This represents 57.02 percent of the cases. In years
where there were 26 to 50 cases, I selected and coded 10 cases (35.54
percent of the cases). I coded 15 cases for years where there were 51 to
322
322
cases, I excluded any that challenged legislation on either
state or federalconstitutionalgrounds since the same constraintsthatmight affectjudges preferenceson the wages and
hours cases might also affecttheir voting on other constitutional cases. I also excluded any cases involvingunions since
they may containanotherpolicy dimensionand might not be
pure indicatorsof preferencesfor labor legislation.I calculated the percentageof outcomes supportingthe labor/individual interest. This variable,State CourtPreferences,
ranges
from 0 to 1.00, where 1.00 indicatesthat all of the decisions
were in favorof the individual(i.e., pro-labor)and 0 indicates
all of the decisionswere in supportof the business interest.
The variableI created to test the Supreme Court Precedent Hypothesis, United States SupremeCourt, is derived
directlyfromthe cases included in Table1. Duringthe years
the Courtupholds wage and hour legislationand until they
strike legislation,I code UnitedStatesSupremeCourtas 1, in
the years the Supreme Court rejects that legislation and
until they change course, I code the variableas 0. This variable is lagged one year to make sure that state court decisions are handed down after the Supreme Court decision
and that the states have time to become aware of the decision. As the SupremeCourt PrecedentHypothesis predicts,
SupremeCourt support for the legislationought to be positively associated with state court support. The resulting
coefficientshould be positively signed.10
Although this is a blunt measure, it serves as a fairly
direct indicator of Supreme Court precedent. The Court's
decisions on minimum wage and maximum hours are
closely related.Both issues were passed as part of legislative
efforts to regulate working conditions. The advocates and
opponents of the legislationframedand debatedboth issues
on the same grounds:due process, the right to contract,and
the breadthof state police powers. In deciding the cases, the
Supreme Court focused on the same questions-whether
the legislation was reasonably related to states' police
powers and whether it violated the Fourteenth Amendment'sDue Processclause and the right to contract.
An exampleof the way these issues were similarlyframed
by the Courtcomes fromJusticeHolmes'dissent in Adkinsv.
Children's
Hospital(1923). Although a majority of his col75 cases (12.4 percent),and 20 in yearswhere therewere more than 75
cases (1.65 percent). In state/yearswhere there were fewer than five
cases, I selected cases from the previous year(s) until I had five cases.
10 Two alternativemeasuresof preferencescould be created.First, I could
createa measure of the ideology of the SupremeCourtjustices such as
the Segal/Coverscores. However,since that datadoes not currentlyexist
it would be prohibitive to create. Moreover,for the purposes of this
project, it is better to use the more direct measure derived from the
actual decisions. A second alternativeis to take the percentageof justices who supported the legislation in their most recent case. I created
and tested such a measure and the results are virtuallyidentical to the
simplermeasureI presentin the analysis.Although the resultsare identical, they may be measuring slightly different concepts. I think the
dichotomous measureI use in the analysisactuallymeasuresprecedent
while a measure of the percent of justices in support of the legislation
may actually be capturing other effects such as expectationsabout
change in precedent.
QUARTERLY
RESEARCH
POLITICAL
QUARTERLY
leagues disagreed with him at the time, he argued that he
"... [did] not understandthe principleon which the power
to fix a minimum for the wages of women can be denied by
those who admit the power to fix a maximumfor theirhours
of work."To Holmes (and ChiefJusticeTaftand Justice Sanford who also dissented), there was no meaningfuldistinction between the hours legislation upheld in Buntingv.
Oregon(1917) and the wage legislationin questionin Adkins.
Ultimately,the Supreme Court accepts Holmes' and the
other dissenters'logic in the case of WestCoastHotelv Parrish (1937). Writing for the majority,ChiefJustice Hughes
states, "This array of precedents and the principles they
applied were thought by the dissenting Justices in the
AdkinsCase to demand that the minimum wage statute be
sustained.The validityof the distinctionmade by the Court
between a minimum wage and a maximum hours in limiting liberty of contractwas especiallychallenged. That challenge persistsand is without any satisfactoryanswer."Thus,
just as a decision to uphold maximum hours legislation for
women indicates a willingness to uphold hours legislation
for men, so should a decision to uphold hours legislationin
general indicate a willingness to uphold wage legislation.
While the issues are somewhat different,when the Court
upholds legislationin one area,it may be indicatingits willingness to uphold legislationin another.
Most of the issues challengedin state courts came aftera
similarruling from the SupremeCourt. The majorityof the
state cases on wages, for example, came after a Supreme
Court ruling on wages and not before. In other words, state
courts had very clear indications of Supreme Court precedent and only rarely had to apply precedent from hours
cases to wage cases. For instance, during the 1900-1916
time frame,when the SupremeCourtwas mostly ruling on
hours legislation,75.9 percentof the cases heardin the state
courts involved some form of hours regulation.During the
1917-1940 time frame, after the Supreme Court began to
decide wage cases, 80.6 percent of the state court cases
involved a minimum wage provision. Thus, even though
wages and hours regulationsare somewhat different,in the
majorityof the cases, the state high courts had clear precedent to apply and in the other cases they had clear signals.
The differentselection and retention systems affect the
degreeto whichjusticesareaccountableand to whom they are
accountable."Thus, the opportunitycosts for acting upon
their sincere preferencesvaries according to how much
accountabilitythe statehas builtin to the rulesgoverningjudicial selectionand retention.I include retentionproceduresin
the analysissince the method of retentionshould have a more
direct effect on judicial voting than mode of initial selection
(Braceand Hall 1995; Epstein,Knightand Shvetsova2002).
11 In addition, term lengths vary.In some states, judges must face some
form of election shortly after appointment, in other states the term of
office is so long as to effectivelybe a life appointment.AlthoughI do not
include it in the analysisbelow, I did examinewhether the length of the
term had any independent effect on the decision to uphold the legislation. The results were insignificant.
323
323
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CoNsTPAINTs
COMPETING
CONSTRAINTS
The data comes from Epstein, Knight and Shvetsova
(2002). During this time frame, the majority of states
retainedtheirjudges by either partisanor nonpartisanelections (77.08 percent). In the set of cases included in the
analysis, the number of cases heard by courts who faced
retention elections is even higher-89.3 percent.'2Thus, I
created a single dummy variable, ElectionRetention,which
combines partisan, and non-partisan elections. Cases
decided by judges who must once again run for office to
retaintheir seat are coded 1, all else (life tenure, merit commission, two houses of the legislature, and governor and
legislature) are coded 0.13 I do not have any expectations for
the effect of ElectionRetentionon its own to effect state court
decisionmaking.Below,I describehow I expect the effect of
state progressivismon state court decisionmakingto be contingent upon ElectionRetention.
In order to measurethe level of progressivismin a state,
I include a variablefor whether and when a state enacts a
series of reformsassociatedwith the progressivemovement.
is an additive scale based
This variable,State Progressivism,
on the enactmentof the following polices: child labor laws,
fair trade laws, welfare agencies, aid for families with
dependent children, initiativeand referenda,direct primaries, utility regulations,slaughterhouseinspections, tax commissions, and old age assistance.14
Each of these variablesis commonly associatedwith progressivepoliciesin the earlypartof the twentiethcentury.The
data for this scale comes fromWalker(1969). In the original
coding, statesare assigneda value of 1 for yearsthat a particular reformis enacted and for all subsequentyears it is in
effect. Adding these individualpolicies togetherproduces a
simple additive scale that ranges from 0 to 10. To be more
consistentwith the coding of the othervariables,I scaledthis
variableto rangefrom0 (no reformsyet enacted)to 1.00 (all
reformsin effect).I do not expect thereto be an independent
effectof this variableon statecourt decisionsto uphold legislation. Instead,the effect of StateProgressivism
on state court
on
be
conditioned
should
Election
Retention.
decisionmaking
In orderto test the Progressive/Election
RetentionHypothesis, I createan interactionbetweenwhetherthe statejustices
must face a retentionelection and the extent of progressive
Retention).
support in the state (State Progressivism*Election
Recall that ElectionRetentionis coded 0 or 1 and State
is coded from 0 to 1.00. Thus, the interaction
Progressivism
between these two variablesalso rangesfrom0 to 1.00. This
interactionis createdto tap into the expectationthatthe effect
is conditioned on whether the justices
State Progressivism
must face some sort of reelection.The overall effect of the
interactionand its componentsshould be positive.
One point on which all virtually all scholars of court
decisionmaking agree is that case facts matter (Brace and
Hall 1993, 1995; Brace, Hall and Langer 200; Emmert
1992; Emmertand Traut 1994; George and Epstein 1992;
Hall and Brace 1994; Segal 1984, 1986; Songer and Haire
1992; Songerand Tabrizi1999). For example,in searchand
seizure cases, there is a difference between a search that
takes place in one'shome versus one that takes place in a car
or between a search that takes place with a warrantversus
one without a warrant(Segal 1984, 1986). In the hours and
wages cases, a similar fact pattern emerges. The Supreme
Courthad an easiertime connecting some of the regulations
to the states'police powers than others. In order to capture
case facts, I include a single measure, Case Facts, which
measures the kind of regulation (hours or wages) and the
object of the regulation(men, women, miners, public workers). This measureis derived from the U.S. SupremeCourt's
decisions and not from the state court decisions.
In general,regulationsof hourswere easierfor the Courtto
uphold than were regulationsof wages. Also, regulationsfor
minerswho were engagedin very dangerouswork were easier
to uphold thanregulationsfor regularshop workers.I created
a scale to capturethe factsof hours/wagelegislation.I coded
as follows: 1 = general minimum wage legislation, 2 = minimum wage for women, 3 = general hours, 4 = women's hours,
5 = public works hours, 6 = public works wages,l5 and 7 =
miners hours.l6 Of the 121 cases identified, 2.5 percent
involvedminershours, 14.9 percentpublicworkshours,33.1
publicworkswages, 17.4 women'shours,9.9 percent,general
hours, 14.9 women'swages, and 7.4 percentgeneralwages.
I also include a measure of the Age of the Law, since it
would be reasonableto expect that the older the law,the less
constrained the courts might feel in overturningthe state
legislation.17 The older the law, the less likely it is still a
reflection of the will of the legislature. Alternatively,it is
possible that the older the legislation, the less likely it is to
15
12
13
14
The breakdown of judicial retention procedures for the judges who
heardthe 121 cases is as follows:80 cases were heardby judges retained
by partisanelections, 28 by non-partisanelections, nine by judges with
life tenure or non-renewableterms, one case by merit retainedjudges,
two by judges selected by the governorand legislature,and one by legislative retention.
Althoughjudges selected by some form of merit commission must usually undergo a retention election, a retention election simply asks
whether "judgeX should be retained."Thus, the competition and likelihood of losing one'sseat is less likely.Moreover,in the years included
in the analysis, there was only one case heard by judges (from California) who would undergo a merit retentionelection of this sort.
I conducted a reliabilityanalysisof the data on observationsfrom all 50
states duringthe entire40 year period. The reliabilityanalysisproduced
an Alpha of .77, indicatinga high level of inter-itemreliability.
16
17
In the categoryof public works, I also include regulationsof the hours
and wages of police, fire, railroadworkers, state employees, and city
employees. I did this on the basis that the Supreme Court'sreasoning
was similar-that the state simply had a greaterinterestin state employees than those engaged in privatebusiness. I also include wages here,
departing from the general claim that wages are more difficult to
uphold, for the same reason. The logic is that when dealing with state
employees in activitiespaid for by the state, the state'sinterest is more
reasonableand the SupremeCourt is more likely to defer to state control of its employees or subcontractors.
Some researchopts to use dummy variablesto capture case facts and
comparecases to a baseline category.I chose to include a single variable
in order to preserve degrees of freedom and since it was possible to
arrangethe facts on a meaningfulscale.
In two cases I was unable to determinethe age of the law. Ratherthan
excludethose cases,I includedthe modalvalue forthis variable:one year.
324
324
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POLITICAL
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TABLE2
-
BASEDON
STATEHIGH COURTTREATMENT
SUPREMECOURTPRECEDENT
U. S. SupremeCourt
Total
Supports Opposes
StateCourtAction
Upholds
55
64.0%
16
45.7%
71
58.7%
Rejects
31
36.0%
19
54.3%
50
41.3%
85
100.0%
36
100.0%
121
100.0%
Total
PearsonChi-Square2.77, p.=.10
be constitutionallycontroversialand thus we might expect
the state court to be more likely to uphold the legislation.
Since there are two strongbut contradictoryexpectations,I
include the variable,but I do not have any strong a priori
expectationsabout how it ought to behave.
Finally,I also include a measure of whether the law in
questionwas one adoptedby the state or by a local municipality.The majorityof the laws were passedby the state(89.3
percent).This variable,StateLaw,is coded 1 for laws passed
by the legislature,and 0 for those passedby city ordinance.I
expect that the statecourtswill be more likely to uphold legislation that comes from a collateralbranch of government
than one that emanatesfromone of the municipalities.l8
RESULTSAND DISCUSSION
Beforepresentingthe multivariateresults, I first present
a simple table of the relationshipbetween the U.S. Supreme
Court precedentand state court decisions. Table2 presents
those results. First notice that state courts upheld the legislation 58.7 percent of the time and rejectedit 41.3 percent
of the time. Thus, there does appear to be a somewhat
greatertendency to uphold legislation ratherthan reject it.
One other initial foray into the data shows that when the
Supreme Court finds no constitutional violation and
upholds the legislation, the state courts are more likely to
uphold legislation (64.0 percent). However, when the
Supreme Court finds the legislation unconstitutional, the
state courts are only slightly more likely to follow the
Court'slead and rejectthe legislation(54.3 percent) than to
uphold it (45.7 percent).
Though this preliminaryanalysisis simplistic, it conveys
importantinformationabout how SupremeCourtprecedent
18 In their study on state court decisionmakingon abortion, Brace,Hall,
and Langer(2000) also include whether the court has a discretionary
docket. I do not include such a measuresince it was much less common
for high courts to have discretionarydockets during this time period.
They also examine the agenda setting stage (the decision to docket the
case). I do not study this decision for the same reason.
affects state courts. Clearly state supreme courts are not
simple vehicles for the transmission of Supreme Court
precedent. They do not mechanically and automatically
adopt the Supreme Court's reasoning. They also appear
nearlyas likely to rejectas to uphold state legislation.Thus,
they do not appearto be total agents of the state legislature
either.However,this analysisdoes not control for any of the
other variablesthat might also affectdecisionmaking.
In orderto account for these effects, I present the results
of a multivariatemodel where the dependent variable is
whether the state supreme court upholds/expands (1) or
rejects/limits(0) legislation on hours or wages. Since the
dependent variable is dichotomous, I estimate the model
using logistic regression.Each of the independentvariables,
as well as the expectations was previously described-to
summarize,I expect UnitedStatesSupremeCourt,StateCourt
Ideology,CaseFacts,and StateLawto be positively relatedto
the probabilitythat a state will uphold legislation. The Age
of the Law could be either positive or negative. While I do
or Elecnot have any expectationsfor the StateProgressivism
I
tion Retentionto be significant on their own, expect the
interactionbetween the two variables,State Progressivism*
ElectionRetentionto be positive and significant.The interaction reflects the conditional effect of retention procedures
and public preferenceson state court decisionmaking.The
results from the analysisare presentedin Table3.
Overall, the model performs well correctly predicting
66.9 percentof the cases overall.This representsa modest 20
percentproportionalreductionin error.The resultssupport
two of the threemain hypotheses-theUnited StatesSupreme
Court Precedent Hypothesis and the Progressive/Elective
Hypothesis.All else equal, when the U.S. SupremeCourtis
supportiveof this kind of labor legislation,state high courts
are more likely to uphold. When the high court is opposed,
so too tend to be the state high courts. At the same time,
among courts whose judges must face the electorate for
reelection,the wider and deeper the support for progressive
policies within a state, the more likely the state court is to
uphold the legislation.Among the same judges, when there
is little support, the state court judges will likely reject the
legislation.19Thus both of these constraintsappearto exert a
statisticallysignificanteffect on state court decisionmaking.
Below, I will consider the relative strength of these constraintsby looking at a series of predictedprobabilities.
The StateCourtIdeologyHypothesisis not supportedby
the results.Contraryto much of the researchon lower court
judges, the variableStateCourtIdeologyfailsto reachstatistical
significance.While contraryto the hypothesis,this null result
mightbe importantto considermore thoroughlyA few possible explanationsfor the null resultemerge.First,it is possible
19
Whenever a variable is highly skewed, such as the ElectionRetention
variable (89.3 percent are coded 1, there is the possibility that the
results may be driven by a few odd cases. In order test for this effect, I
estimated only among cases with judges retainedthrough a partisanor
nonpartisanelection (and thus, the interactionwith StateProgressivism)
and the results are unchanged.
325
COMPETINGCONSTRAINTS
= TABLE3
ANALYSIS
OF STATECOURTDECISIONSON HOURSAND WAGES
LEGISLATION
Variable
UnitedStatesSupremeCourt
Estimate
.90**
(.46)
Statecourtpreferences
Casefacts
.56
(.96)
.30**
(.14)
Stateprogressivism
-3.80
(3.53)
Electionretention
Stateprogressivism
*Electionretention
Statelaw
-3.29
(2.55)
6.44**
(3.69)
1.17**
(.65)
Age of law
constant
N
PercentCorrectlyPredicted
ProportionalReductionin Error
-2 Log Likelihood
Chi-Square8df
-.04
(.04)
-.70
(2.78)
121
66.9
20.0%
147.01
17.07
p< .03
Note: Resultsobtained from logistic regression.
**p < .05, one-tailedhypothesis test; standarderrorsare in parentheses.
that given the high salience of these issues, both within the
statesas well as to the SupremeCourt,the statecourtssimply
feltas thoughthey had to leavetheirown preferencesasideon
theseissuesor fearretaliationcome reelectiontime or by being
overturnedby the SupremeCourt(see Brace,Halland Langer
2000). Second,it is possible that the receivedwisdom on the
importanceof judicialideologyon statecourtdecisionmaking
is formedby the tendencyof scholarsof state courtsto study
decisionmakingduringthe last few decades.In eithercase, the
resultshere ought to lead us to reconsiderwhether some of
our assumptionsaboutjudicialdecisionmakingmightbe time
bound or in need of furtherclarification.20
Two other variables prove statisticallysignificant: Case
Facts,and StateLaw.As expected both variableshave a positive effect on the probability that the state court will
uphold/expand the hours or wage legislation being challenged. The "easier"the facts, the easier it is for the state
court to uphold a case, all else equal. Also, when the law
comes out of the state legislature,ratherthan a city council,
the law is also more likely to be upheld, all else equal.
In order to get a better substantiveinterpretationof the
results, I turn to the predicted probabilitiespresented in
Table4. This table presents the predictedprobabilitythat a
state court will uphold legislation for varying levels of:
United States Supreme Court, State Progressivism*Election
Retention,and CaseFacts.All of the other variablesare held
constant at their mean or modal values.
In the first column, all entries are based on cases where
the Supreme Court has indicated opposition to wage and
hours cases and the second column is where it has indicated
support. In each instance, SupremeCourtsupport is clearly
associatedwith an increasein the probabilitythat the state
courtwill uphold the legislation.This point is also illustrated
in Figure 1 which graphicallypresents a series of predicted
probabilities.In this graph, the lines representthe effect of
Supreme Court support (or opposition) for the legislation
among state courtjudges who are retainedthroughelection,
by increasinglevels of state support for progressivism.Thus,
the interactioneffect is at work (CaseFactsis held constant
at 4, the median value). In this graph, it is clear that the
probability of upholding the legislation increases among
electorallyretainedjudges in states with more support for
progressivepolices. Moreover,the probabilityis much higher
when the Supreme Court is supportive.At the same time,
SupremeCourtoppositionclearlylowers the probabilitythat
the state high court will uphold the legislation.
Returning to the predicted probabilities presented in
Table4, the top half of the table presents predicted values
when CaseFactsis equal to 5 (public works/wages)and the
bottom half, when Case Facts is set at 2 (women'swages).
Moving down the columns in the different halves of the
table, are the probabilitiesfor increasinglevels of StateProgressivism(and, since ElectionRetentionis set at 1, the interaction-State Progressivism
*ElectionRetentionis in effect as
well). The top half of the table, where case facts are relatively "easy"(Case Facts= 5), shows that when the Supreme
Court is opposed to this kind of legislation,the model predicts state courtswill rejectunless state progressivismis also
relativelyhigh (.5 or higher). When the Supreme Court is
supportive,the probabilityis much higher.Evenwhen there
20 Another potential explanation for the failure of the state court
prefer-
ences variable to achieve statistical significance is possibility that my
measureof ideology does not adequatelycapturejudicial ideology.This
may result from two sources. First, it is possible that the sample of
coded cases was insufficientlylarge. While a sample of at least 20 percent of similar cases per year was used and ought to be sufficient (see
footnote 9), I estimatedthe model using only those cases where at least
ten cases were content analyzed to create the measure of state court
ideology. The results for state court ideology remained statistically
insignificantand the effect of the other variablesremainsunchanged. A
second reasonwhy the measuremay not capturejudicial ideology is that
the cases I coded may not adequatelycapturejudicial preferencesfor
minimum wage/maximum hours legislation. However, I used very
broad search terms to captureas wide arrayof labor cases pitting business interests above worker protection. Thus, I think this measure
comes as close as possible to capturingjudicial preferenceson this issue
(again, see footnote 9).
326
326
RESEARCH
POLITICAL
POLITICAL
RESEARCH
QUARTERLY
QUARTERLY
TABLE4
PREDICTED
PROBABILITIES
OF STATECOURTUPHOLDINGLEGISLATION
UnitedStatesSupremeCourt
Supports
Opposes
Case Facts = 5
State Progressivism= .3
Election Retention = 1.0
.42
.64
.55
.75
.67
.84
.22
.42
.33
.55
.46
.67
StateProgressivism*Election
Retention= .2
State Progressivism= .5
Election Retention = 1.0
StateProgressivism
*ElectionRetention= .5
State Progressivism= .7
Election Retention = 1.0
StateProgressivism*Election
Retention= .7
Case Facts = 2
State Progressivism= .3
Election Retention = 1.0
StateProgressivism*Election
Retention= .2
State Progressivism= .5
Election Retention = 1.0
StateProgressivism*Election
Retention= .5
State Progressivism= .7
Election Retention = 1.0
StateProgressivismElectionRetention= .7
Note: all other variablesheld at their mean or modal value.
are relativelylow levels of support for progressivism,there
is still a good chance that the state courtwill uphold the legislation. This provides strong support for the Supreme
Court PrecedentHypothesis.
Where the case facts are more difficult (CaseFacts= 2),
and when the SupremeCourtis opposed (0), even relatively
Election(7)
high levels of the State Progressivism*Retention
does not predictthat the court will uphold (.46) the legislation. Under this particularscenario,the model does not predict that the statecourtwill uphold the legislationuntil State
(and thus its interactionwith ElectionRetention)
Progressivism
reach a level of .8 on the 0 to 1.0 scale. That is quite a high
thresholdto reach. The probabilityof upholding legislation
then reaches only about 53 percent. The results from this
analysisprovide evidence to support the importanceof U.S.
SupremeCourtprecedenton state court decisionmaking.
The predicted probabilitiesillustratethree main points.
First, Case Facts matter. As with previous research using
fact-patternanalysis, the specific subjects and object of the
legislation were important considerations for the state
courts in deciding whether to uphold or reject the legislation. This point confirms the need to incorporate some
measure of how the cases themselves change over time
when we considerjudicial decisionmakingover time.
Second, state support for the kinds of policies enacted in
the state are importantbut only where state courtjudges are
tied to the electoratethroughretention.As evidence of support for such policies increased, so too did the probability
of the state courtwhose judges areretainedthroughelection
will uphold the legislation. This finding is consistent with
the findings of research on state court decisionmaking in
more recent times (see Brace and Hall 1995; Brace, Hall,
and Langer2000; Langer2002; Songerand Tabrizi1999).
Finally, the results clearly point to the importance of
SupremeCourtprecedent.Whetherthe Courthas indicated
its support or opposition to this kind of legislationhas a statisticallyand substantivelyimportanteffect on whether the
legislation will be upheld. This finding suggests that state
courts may act as agents of the SupremeCourtin much the
same way as do judges on the U.S. Courts of Appeal
(Songer,Segal, Cameron 1994). Priorresearchhas failed to
show that state supreme courts feel constrained by U.S.
Supreme Court precedent when deciding on the constitutionality or applicationof state law.
CONCLUSION
This research provides evidence that the decisions of
state court judges are constrained from multiple sources.
That the judges are constrainedto the extent that they are
tied to the environmentis consistentwith previous research
(Braceand Hall 1995; Brace,Hall, and Langer2000; Langer
327
COMPETING
CONSTRAINTS
CONSTRAINTS
COMPETING
-
FIGURE
1
PREDICTED PROBABILITYOF UPHOLDING LEGISLATIONBY STATE PROGRESSIVISMAND SUPREME COURT SUPPORT AMONG STATES WITH
ELECTORALLY RETAINED JUDGES
1.
U.S. Supreme Court
Supports
Opposes
State Progressivism
Note: All other variablesare held constant at their mean or modal value.
2002). The findings from this research add to that growing
body of literature. However, what else emerged, even after
controlling for all the other variables included in the analysis, is that signals of support/opposition from the U.S.
Supreme Court systematically increased the probability that
state courts would uphold/reject the legislation. This is an
important contribution to the literature on state court decisionmaking. Since these results contrast with the results
from Brace, Hall, and Langer (2000), more research needs
to investigate the conditions where Supreme Court precedent will affect state court decisionmaking. At the very least,
it provides important information about the conditions
under which the Supreme Court can see its decisions successfully implemented by state court judges. For Supreme
Court decisions to have any effect on public policy, the decisions must be carried out by other political actors. These
as reelection-to
political actors have other goals-such
which they must simultaneously attend.
At the same time, the amount of support for progressive
policies in the state increased the probability that elected
judges would uphold the legislation-even in some instances
where the Supreme Court was not supportive. Thus, the
Supreme Court's ability to see its decisions implemented is
not wholesale-intra-state constraints may, at some times, be
more salient to judges. This research adds to the growing call
for more fully specified models of judicial decisionmaking.
Not only must we fully capture the state political environment and institutional rules, we must also simultaneously
consider the larger political picture and consider the constraints placed on state courts by the U.S. Supreme Court.
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[email protected]