The Politicization of State Judicial Elections: The Effects of New-Style Campaigns on State Court Legitimacy

近年来，美国最高法院允许州法官在司法职位竞选期间发表政策声明的决定，以及州司法系统日益增长的经济，政治和社会重要性，以及大量资金投入司法竞选，导致州最高法院选举的重大变化。 法律的权威人士和社会科学家都预测，这种新形式的司法竞选活动的后果将是国家法律的制度和法院失去合法性;随着公民开始认为法院不是独一无二的-也就是说，不是普通的政治机构-法院的公正性将受到质疑，从而破坏这些机构的基本合法性。 这些新型的司法运动为司法合法性理论在美国各州实验室的进一步发展提供了有利的背景。 具体而言，本项目将检验司法竞选活动的政治化特征影响对法律和法院合法性的看法这一假设。 使用在得克萨斯州的公民的代表性样本的三波小组调查，研究将探讨是否对法律和法院的态度的变化是暴露于政治化的司法竞选广告的功能。该项目利用了相对较新的实际竞选广告数据库，使研究人员能够了解选民所接触的广告内容的性质。 除了该项目对研究基础设施和研究生培训的贡献外，该项目还将在很短的禁运期内向学术界提供所收集的数据。 此外，该项目还将提供急需的经验证据，说明在当代政治环境中选举法官的后果。

In recent years, U.S. Supreme Court decisions allowing state judges to make policy statements during campaigns for judicial offices, together with the growing economic, political, and social importance of state judicial systems and the vast sums of money being invested in judicial campaigns, have led to substantial changes in elections for state supreme courts. Both legal pundits and social scientists predict that the consequence of this new style of judicial campaigning will be the loss of legitimacy for state legal systems and courts; as citizens come to see courts as not unique -- that is, as ordinary political institutions -- the impartiality of the courts will be questioned, undermining the basic legitimacy of these institutions. These new-style judicial campaigns thus provide a propitious context for further development of theories of judicial legitimacy in the laboratories of the American states. Specifically, this project will test the hypothesis that the politicized character of judicial campaigning influences perceptions of the legitimacy of law and courts. Using a three-wave panel survey of a representative sample of citizens in the state of Texas, the research will examine whether changes in attitudes toward law and courts are a function of exposure to politicized judicial campaign advertisements. The project takes advantage of the relatively new databases of actual campaign ads, which allow the researchers to know the nature of the advertising content to which voters are exposed. Beyond the project's contributions to research infrastructure and graduate student training, the project will make the data collected available to the scholarly community with very little embargo period. In addition, the project will yield much-needed empirical evidence on the consequences of electing judges in the contemporary political environment.