Skip to main content
Article
Partisanship in State Supreme Courts: The Empirical Relationship between Party Campaign Contributions and Judicial Decision Making
Journal of Legal Studies
  • Michael S. Kang
  • Joanna M. Shepherd
Publication Date
1-1-2015
Start Page
S161
Abstract

In this article, we explore the relationship between political parties’ campaign contributions and partisan voting among state supreme court judges who won partisan elections. Using three different measures of partisan voting, we find that contributions from political parties are associated with partisanship in judicial decision making. Campaign contributions from political parties are related to judicial voting in the party-preferred ideological direction and to cohesive voting among judges from the same political party. We find that the relationship between party contributions and partisan voting is stronger for Republican judges than for Democratic judges.

Citation Information
Michael S. Kang and Joanna M. Shepherd. "Partisanship in State Supreme Courts: The Empirical Relationship between Party Campaign Contributions and Judicial Decision Making" (2015)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/joanna-shepherd/20/