Dissertation Research: United States Supreme Court Influence on State Lawmaking

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The United States Supreme Court has struck down approximately 140 federal laws because they violated the United States Constitution, while over 1,100 state laws have been struck down as unconstitutional. Yet despite the Court's greater activity in striking down non-federal laws, little is known about state legislators' views of the Supreme Court, their knowledge of the Constitution and Supreme Court decisions, and the role of federal constitutional considerations in state legislative processes. On the other hand, such questions pertaining to Congress are regularly studied. This project seeks to uncover variation across legislators and legislatures in answering the following central question: To what extent do the United States Supreme Court and the United States Constitution constrain state lawmaking? The methodology employed to answer this question is empirical, using results from mailed surveys of state legislators, bill drafting office attorneys, and State Attorney General office attorneys sampled from all 50 states, in addition to more detailed examinations of four case study states.