Collaborative Research: The Addition of the Blackmun Papers to the U.S. Supreme Court Databases

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The purpose of this database is to update the existing Supreme Court Judicial Database by the addition of conference vote and supportive data drawn from the papers of Justice Blackmun that extend through the first eight terms of the Rehnquist Court. Blackmun's data, which begin with the second term of the Burger Court (1970), will also serve as a valuable supplement to the papers of Justices Brennan, Powell, and Douglas. Because Blackmun served on both the Burger and Rehnquist Courts, we will create a new database encompassing both Courts that will be based on and patterned after the codes and protocols of the existing NSF-sponsored Burger Court database. Those data will contain the identification, background, chronological, substantive, outcome, and voting and opinion variables of the current version. The richness of the resulting data -- which has already become the cynosure for virtually all behavioral research, in addition to that of legalistically analytical and descriptive work -- will continue to enhance the formulation of theory and the testing of hypotheses, not only with respect to the Supreme Court, but to other groups of decision makers as well. In addition, the data and other materials will be made available to the research community via the worldwide web.