Doctoral Dissertation Research on Interactions between Congress and Supreme Court

美国国会与最高法院之间的冲突近年来越来越频繁，也越来越引人注目。 不那么引人注目但更重要的是国会和最高法院之间的持续互动，这种互动有助于塑造美国的公共政策。 学者们研究了这种相互作用，特别关注国会对最高法院解释联邦法规的决定的反应。 这项奖学金给了我们很多东西，但在一些重要方面是有限的。 本文旨在解决这些局限性，从而阐明国会和法院之间的关系。首先，本文考虑了国会和法院对彼此的影响。 最高法院有权裁定联邦法规违宪，这使国会议员有理由以经得起宪法挑战的方式制定法规。 基于这个原因，本文将考察司法审查的前景如何影响国会的选择，以及这些选择如何影响最高法院对基于宪法理由受到质疑的法规的审查。其次，本文将从广义上考察影响国会和最高法院行动的动机。 为了方便起见，学者们通常假设国会议员和最高法院大法官都只根据他们在意识形态光谱上的立场做出选择。 当然，议员和大法官们都有比这更复杂的动机。 沿着意识形态方面的考虑，论文考虑到了对公共政策质量的兴趣，即所谓的“适宜性”。“因此，当国会议员考虑立法，当最高法院法官确定立法是否符合宪法时，他们采取行动的有效政策（包括其与宪法的一致性），以及其意识形态的content.The论文抓住这些考虑在一个数学模型，产生的条件，影响国会和最高法院的决定的假设。 这些假设在三组实证分析中进行了检验，这些分析使用了从国会和法院收集的数据，采用了适合分析过程的统计模型。 有两项分析涉及在最高法院以宪法为由受到质疑的立法。 第一项分析仔细研究了法院在1994年至2005年长期稳定的成员组成期间的裁决，而第二项分析则审查了1987年至2000年法院立法的命运。 最后的分析考察了1977年至2002年美国国会的决定，特别是最高法院可能宣布一项法规无效的可能性是否以及如何影响国会制定的法规的意识形态内容和适用性，本文的数学模型和实证结果将阐明国会和最高法院在宪法中的互动方式。 在研究中采取的方法也适用于其他部门间的互动在美国政府，因此，它可以有助于我们的理解，在美国的公共政策的机构之间的复杂的相互作用。

AbstractDoctoral Dissertation Research on Interactions Between Congress and the Supreme CourtRoman Ivanchenko, Ohio State University (advisor: Lawrence Baum) Conflicts between Congress and the Supreme Court have become more frequent and more dramatic in the past few years. Less dramatic but more important is the continuous interaction between Congress and the Court that helps to shape public policy in the United States. Scholars have studied this interaction, giving particular attention to the ways that Congress responds to Supreme Court decisions that interpret federal statutes. This scholarship has taught us a good deal, but it is limited in some important respects. This dissertation is intended to address those limitations and thus to illuminate the relationship between Congress and the Court.First, the dissertation considers the influence of both Congress and the Court on each other. The Court's power to rule that federal statutes are unconstitutional gives members of Congress reason to write statutes in a way that will withstand constitutional challenges. For this reason, the dissertation examines how the prospect of judicial review shapes congressional choices as well as how those choices affect the Court's scrutiny of statutes that are challenged on constitutional grounds.Second, the dissertation takes a broad view of the motivations that influence action by Congress and the Court. For convenience, scholars typically assume that both members of Congress and Supreme Court justices make choices based solely on their positions on the ideological spectrum. Of course, both members and justices have more complex motivations than that. Along with ideological considerations, the dissertation takes into account an interest in the quality of public policy, what it calls "suitability." Thus, when members of Congress consider legislation and when Supreme Court justices determine whether legislation is constitutionally acceptable, they act on their interest in effective policy (including its consistency with the Constitution) as well as its ideological content.The dissertation captures these considerations in a mathematical model that produces hypotheses about the conditions that affect decisions by Congress and the Supreme Court. Those hypotheses are tested in three sets of empirical analyses that use data gathered on Congress and the Court, employing statistical models that were chosen because they fit the processes to be analyzed. Two analyses concern legislation that is challenged on constitutional grounds in the Supreme Court. The first analysis looks closely at decisions of the Court during its long period of stable membership from 1994 to 2005, while the second examines the fate of legislation in the courts from 1987 to 2000. The final analysis examines decisions in Congress from 1977 to 2002, specifically whether and how the possibility that the Supreme Court might invalidate a statute influences the ideological content and suitability of the statutes that Congress enacts.The mathematical model and the empirical findings of the dissertation will illuminate the ways that Congress and the Supreme Court interact in constitutional law. The approach taken in the research is also applicable to other inter-branch interactions in American government, and thus it can contribute to our understanding of the complex interplay between institutions that shapes public policy in the United States.