Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Checking the Courts: Law, Ideology, and Contingent Discretion

Checking the Courts: Law, Ideology, and Contingent Discretion

Randazzo, Kirk a.
Waterman, Richard W.

Paperback

Series: Suny American Constitutionalism

General LawUnited States Politics

ISBN10: 1438452888
ISBN13: 9781438452883
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: Jul 2 2015
Pages: 216
Weight: 0.70
Height: 0.60 Width: 5.90 Depth: 8.90
Language: English

Examines and measures the extent to which statutory language affects judicial behavior.

How does the language of legislative statutes affect judicial behavior? Scholars of the judiciary have rarely studied this question despite statutes being, theoretically, the primary opportunity for legislatures to ensure that those individuals who interpret the law will follow their preferences. In Checking the Courts, Kirk A. Randazzo and Richard W. Waterman offer a model that integrates ideological and legal factors through an empirical measure of statutory discretion. The model is tested across multiple judicial institutions, at both the federal and state levels, and reveals that judges are influenced by the levels of discretion afforded in the legislative statutes. In those cases where lawmakers have clear policy preferences, legislation encourages judges to strictly interpret the plain meaning of the law. Conversely, if policy preferences are unclear, legislation leaves open the possibility that judges will make decisions based on their own ideological policy preferences. Checking the Courts thus provides us with a better understanding of the dynamic interplay between law and ideology.

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