Legislatures and the Judiciary: The Effects of Statutory Constraint

这一建议直接集中在语言包括在国会法规，旨在评估在何种程度上法定语言是用来控制州和联邦法官的决定。 评估立法和司法部门之间的紧张关系一直很困难，因为缺乏跨法律和政治多个层面的经验措施。虽然大量的分析从经验上证明了意识形态的影响，但对法律的影响进行定量分析的类似文献还没有出现。因此，理论发展往往集中在法官和国会议员的意识形态上，而损害了法律的影响。虽然定性研究强化了关于法律的影响的传统观点，但"真实的问题不是这种行为是否存在，而是它是否存在于系统和实质意义的层面"（Spaeth and Segal，1999，7）。我们的研究项目开发了一个新的法律的维度-法定约束-的实证措施，并在州和联邦法院的判决中测试该措施。它有助于更广泛的理论发展，让学者评估政府机构之间的关系跨越法律的，态度和制度层面。 此外，我们的研究提供了另一种方法来研究立法机关和司法机关之间的分权关系。我们通过研究联邦和州立法机构如何试图使用法规的语言来控制法官的决策过程来发展这种方法。我们认为，每一个国家都有能力通过包含详细语言的法规来约束司法行为。为了研究这一论点，我们借用官僚政治文献，介绍和测试一种新的法定约束措施。这一措施允许严格审查法律与政治之间的关系（即，法律约束和意识形态偏好之间的关系）。我们将在这个研究项目中测试的假设建立在我们以前的研究，表明国会成功地控制通过法定语言的司法行为。 在这里，我们试图通过考察司法决策中政治与法律的权衡来提高我们的理论知识。 这些初步结果对司法政治和分权理论具有重要意义，我们的建议建立在这些见解的基础上。通过继续发展新的法律的影响力的实证测量，并对这些测量进行严格的检验，我们提供了一种新的方法来评估现有的政府关系理论。因此，这种方法有可能为学术研究人员、政策分析师、法律的从业者以及对政府关系和民主理论感兴趣的个人提供对政府运作的新见解，从而产生更广泛的社会影响。未来对立法过程的研究将能够依靠我们的测量来确定立法对社会的影响;未来对司法过程的研究将能够依靠我们的测量来确定法律的影响对法官的系统性影响;未来的研究，政府关系将能够依靠我们的措施来评估与民主治理和宪法有关的各个方面，三权分立。

AbstractLEGISLATURES AND THE JUDICIARY: THE EFFECTS OF STATUTORY CONSTRAINT This proposal focuses directly on the language included in congressional statutes and is aimed at assessing the extent to which statutory language is used to control the decisions that state and federal judges make. Intellectual Merit Evaluating the tension between the legislative and judicial branches has been difficult because of a lack of empirical measures across the multiple dimensions of law and politics. While numerous analyses have empirically demonstrated the influence of ideology, a similar body of literature has not emerged for the quantitative analysis of legal influences. Consequently, theoretical development has tended to focus on the ideology of judges and members of Congress to the detriment of legal influences. Although qualitative research reinforces the conventional wisdom about legal influences, "the real question is not whether such behavior exists at all but whether it exists at systematic and substantively meaningful levels" (Spaeth and Segal 1999, 7). Our research project develops an empirical measure of a new legal dimension--statutory constraint--and tests the measure across decisions in state and federal courts. It contributes to broader development of theory by allowing scholars to evaluate relationships among governmental institutions across legal, attitudinal, and institutional dimensions. Additionally, our research offers an alternative approach for examining separation-of-powers relationship between legislatures and judiciaries. We develop this approach by examining how federal and state legislatures attempt to use the language of statutes to control the decision making process of judges. Each, we argue, possesses the ability to constrain judicial behavior by passing statutes containing detailed language. To investigate this thesis we borrow from the bureaucratic politics literature to introduce and test a new measure of statutory constraint. This measure permits a rigorous examination of the relationship between law and politics (i.e., between statutory constraint and ideological preferences). The hypotheses we shall test in this research project build upon our previous research, showing that a Congress successfully controls judicial behavior through statutory language. Here, we attempt to improve our theoretical knowledge by examining the tradeoff between politics and law in judicial decision making. Broader Impact These initial results have important implications for theories of judicial politics and separation-of-powers and our proposal builds upon these insights. By continuing to develop new empirical measures of legal influence, and subjecting those measures to rigorous tests, we offer a new approach to evaluating existing theories of governmental relations. Consequently, this approach has the potential to make a broader social impact by providing academic researchers, policy analysts, legal practitioners, and individuals interested in governmental relations and democratic theory with new insights into governmental operations. Future research on the legislative process will be able to rely on our measure to determine the impact that legislation has on society; future research on the judicial process will be able to rely on our measure to determine the systematic impact of legal influences on judges; and future research on inter-governmental relations will be able to rely on our measure to evaluate various aspects associated with democratic governance and the constitutional separation-of-powers.