Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T05:13:45.220Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Does Merit Selection Work?

Evidence from Commission and Gubernatorial Choices

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2022

Greg Goelzhauser
Greg Goelzhauser*
Affiliation:
Utah State University
*
Contact the author at [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Does merit selection work? Existing evidence on institutional performance compares outcomes of interest across selection mechanisms, which does not account for the two-stage process that makes merit selection unique. Using information obtained from public records requests, this article analyzes the determinants of commission and gubernatorial selections from relevant candidate pools. The evidence suggests that although commissions and governors seem to select on certain qualifications, women are disadvantaged at the commission stage and partisanship is relevant at both stages. The results have important implications for our understanding of merit selection’s institutional performance and the broader judicial selection debate.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Law and Courts , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , Spring 2018 , pp. 155 - 187
Copyright
© 2018 by the Law and Courts Organized Section of the American Political Science Association. All rights reserved.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Previous versions of this article were presented at the 2016 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in Philadelphia and the 2017 annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association in Chicago. Thanks to Nancy Arrington, Joshua Boston, Damon Cann, David Klein, Josh Ryan, Jeffrey Segal, and the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and discussions; Dillon Corbridge and Madelyn Fife for helpful research assistance; and the American Political Science Association for financial assistance.

References

American Judicature Society. n.d. “Merit Selection: The Best Way to Choose the Best Judges.” http://www.judicialselection.us/uploads/documents/ms_descrip_1185462202120.pdf.Google Scholar
Beck, Nathaniel. 2015. “Estimating Grouped Data Models with a Binary Dependent Variable and Fixed Effects: What Are the Issues?” Working paper, New York University.Google Scholar
Black, Henry Campbell, ed. 1979. Black’s Law Dictionary. 5th ed. St. Paul, MN: West.Google Scholar
Black, Ryan C., and Boyd, Christina L. 2010. “US Supreme Court Agenda Setting and the Role of Litigant Status.” Journal of Law, Courts, and Organization 28 (2): 286–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonica, Adam, and Sen, Maya. Forthcoming. “The Politics of Selecting the Bench from the Bar: The Legal Profession and Partisan Incentives to Politicize the Judiciary.” Journal of Law and Economics.Google Scholar
Bonneau, Chris W., and Cann, Damon M. 2015. Voters’ Verdicts: Citizens, Campaigns, and Institutions in State Supreme Court Elections. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.Google Scholar
Bonneau, Chris W., and Gann Hall, Melinda. 2009. In Defense of Judicial Elections. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonneau, Chris W., and Gann Hall, Melinda, eds. 2016. Judicial Elections in the 21st Century. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bopp, James Jr., 2013. “The Perils of Merit Selection.” Indiana Law Review 46 (1): 87–102.Google Scholar
Brace, Paul, and Boyea, Brent D. 2008. “State Public Opinion, the Death Penalty, and the Practice of Electing Judges.” American Journal of Political Science 52 (2): 360–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brace, Paul, and Gann Hall, Melinda. 1997. “The Interplay of Preferences, Case Facts, Context, and Rules in the Politics of Judicial Choice.” Journal of Politics 59 (4): 1206–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandt, Patrick T., and Schneider, Christina J. 2007. “So the Reviewer Told You to Use a Selection Model? Selection Models and the Study of International Relations.” Unpublished manuscript, University of Texas.Google Scholar
Bratton, Kathleen A., and Spill, Rorie L. 2002. “Existing Diversity and Judicial Selection: The Role of the Appointment Method in Establishing Gender Diversity in State Supreme Courts.” Social Science Quarterly 83 (2): 504–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Canes-Wrone, Brandice, Clark, Tom S., and Kelly, Jason P. 2014. “Judicial Selection and Death Penalty Decisions.” American Political Science Review 108 (1): 23–39.Google Scholar
Cann, Damon M. 2008. “Modeling Committee Chair Selection in the U.S. House of Representatives.” Political Analysis 16 (3): 274–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cann, Damon M., and Yates, Jeff. 2016. These Estimable Courts: Understanding Public Perceptions of State Judicial Institutions and Legal Policymaking. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Canon, Bradley C. 1972. “The Impact of Formal Selection Processes on the Characteristics of Judges—Reconsidered.” Law and Society Review 6 (4): 579–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlin, Jerome E. 1962. Lawyers on Their Own: The Solo Practitioner in an Urban Setting. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Caughey, Devin, and Warshaw, Christopher. 2016. “The Dynamics of State Policy Liberalism.” American Journal of Political Science 60 (4): 899–913.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caul, Miki. 2001. “Political Parties and the Adoption of Candidate Gender Quotas: A Cross-National Analysis.” Journal of Politics 63 (4): 1214–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chamberlain, Gary. 2007. “Panel Data.” In vol. 2 of Handbook of Econometrics, ed. Heckman, James J. and Leamer, Edward. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Chemerinsky, Erwin. 2015. The Case against the Supreme Court. New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Chesterman, Melany. 2003. “More Female Judges Would Be Step Forward for State.” Lincoln Journal Star, January 17.Google Scholar
Chilton, Dam S., and Posner, Eric A. 2015. “An Empirical Study of Political Bias in Legal Scholarship.” Journal of Legal Studies 44 (2): 277–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Choi, Stephen J., Gulati, G. Mitu, and Posner, Eric A. 2010. “Professionals or Politicians: The Uncertain Empirical Case for an Elected Rather Than Appointed Judiciary.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 26 (2): 290–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collins, Todd A., Dumas, Tao L., and Moyer, Laura P. 2017. “Intersection Disadvantages: Race, Gender, and Age Discrimination among Attorneys.” Social Science Quarterly, forthcoming.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Devine, Patricia G., Forscher, Patrick S., Austin, Anthony J., and Cox, William T. L.. 2012. “Long-Term Reduction in Implicit Race Bias: A Prejudice Habit-Breaking Intervention.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 48 (6): 1267–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Duggan, Joe. 2017. “Lawyers Urge Nebraska Legislators to Not Change System of Appointing Judges.” World-Herald Bureau, February 23.Google Scholar
Epstein, Lee, Knight, Jack, and Martin, Andrew D. 2003. “The Norm of Prior Judicial Experience and Its Consequences for Career Diversity on the U.S. Supreme Court.” California Law Review 91 (4): 903–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faccio, Mara, Masulis, Ronald W., and McConnell, John J. 2006. “Political Connections and Corporate Bailouts.” Journal of Finance 61 (6): 2597–635.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferguson, Thomas, and Voth, Hans-Joachim. 2008. “Betting on Hitler: The Value of Political Connections in Nazi Germany.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 123 (1): 101–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisman, Raymond. 2001. “Estimating the Value of Political Connections.” American Economic Review 91 (4): 1095–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitzpatrick, Brian T. 2016. “The Ideological Consequences of Selection: A Nationwide Study of the Methods of Selecting Judges.” SSRN working paper. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2722662.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freedman, David A., and Sekhon, Jasjeet S. 2010. “Endogeneity in Probit Response Models.” Political Analysis 18 (2): 138–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L. 2012. Electing Judges: The Surprising Effects of Campaigning on Judicial Legitimacy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gill, Rebecca D. 2014. “Implicit Bias in Judicial Performance Evaluations: We Must Do Better Than This.” Justice System Journal 35 (3): 271–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gill, Rebecca D., Lazos, Sylvia R., and Waters, Mallory M. 2011. “Are Judicial Performance Evaluations Fair to Women and Minorities? A Cautionary Tale from Clark County, Nevada.” Law and Society Review 45 (3): 731–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Girod, Sabine, Fassiotto, Magali, Grewal, Daisy, Candy Ku, Manwai, Sriram, Natarajan, Nosek, Brian A., and Valentine, Hannah. 2016. “Reducing Implicit Gender Leadership Bias in Academic Medicine with an Educational Intervention.” Academic Medicine 91 (8): 1143–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Glick, Henry R. 1978. “The Promise and the Performance of the Missouri Plan: Judicial Selection in the Fifty States.” University of Miami Law Review 32 (3): 509–42.Google Scholar
Glick, Henry R., and Emmert, Craig F. 1987. “Selection Systems and Judicial Characteristics: The Recruitment of State Supreme Court Judges.” Judicature 70 (4): 228–35.Google Scholar
Goelzhauser, Greg. 2011. “Diversifying State Supreme Courts.” Law and Society Review 45 (3): 761–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goelzhauser, Greg. 2012. “Accountability and Judicial Performance: Evidence from Case Dispositions.” Justice System Journal 33 (3): 249–61.Google Scholar
Goelzhauser, Greg. 2016. Choosing State Supreme Court Justices: Merit Selection and the Consequences of Institutional Reform. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goelzhauser, Greg, and Cann, Damon M. 2014. “Judicial Independence and Opinion Clarity on State Supreme Courts.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 14 (2): 123–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, Sanford C., and Huber, Gregory. 2007. “The Effect of Electoral Competitiveness on Incumbent Behavior.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 2 (2): 107–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haggart, Virgil J. Jr., 1962. “The Case for the Nebraska Merit Plan.” Nebraska Law Review 41 (4): 723–45.Google Scholar
Hall, Melinda Gann. 1987. “Constituent Influence in State Supreme Courts: Conceptual Notes and a Case Study.” Journal of Politics 49 (4): 1117–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Melinda Gann. 1992. “Electoral Politics and Strategic Voting in State Supreme Courts.” Journal of Politics 54 (2): 427–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Melinda Gann. 2015. Attacking Judges: How Campaign Advertising Influences State Supreme Court Elections. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Hurwitz, Mark S., and Noble Lanier, Drew. 2003. “Explaining Judicial Diversity: The Differential Ability of Women and Minorities to Attain Seats on State Supreme and Appellate Courts.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 3 (4): 329–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacob, Herbert. 1964. “The Effect of Institutional Differences in the Recruitment Process: The Case of State Judges.” Journal of Public Law 13 (1): 104–19.Google Scholar
Jordan, Marty P., and Grossman, Matt. 2016. The Correlates of State Policy Project v.1.10. Database. East Lansing, MI: Institute for Public Policy and Social Research.Google Scholar
Karaca-Mandic, Pinar, Norton, Edward C., and Dowd, Bryan. 2012. “Interaction Terms in Nonlinear Models.” Health Services Research 47 (1): 255–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kemp, Gordon, and Santos Silva, Joao. 2016. “Partial Effects in Fixed-Effects Models.” http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:boc:usug16:06.Google Scholar
Kritzer, Herbert M. 2015. Justices on the Ballot: Continuity and Change in State Supreme Court Elections. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krivosha, Norman. 1987. “Acquiring Judges by the Merit Selection Method: The Case for Adopting Such a Method.” Southwestern Law Journal 40 (6): 15–22.Google Scholar
Krook, Mona Lena. 2010. Quotas for Women in Politics: Gender and Candidate Selection Reform Worldwide. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Maltzman, Forrest, Spriggs, James F., and Wahlbeck, Paul J. 2000. Crafting Law on the Supreme Court: The Collegial Game. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McFadden, Daniel. 1973. “Conditional Logit Analysis of Qualitative Choice Behavior.” In Frontiers in Economics, ed. Zarembka, P. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Nicholson-Crotty, Sean, and Meier, Kenneth J. 2002. “Size Doesn’t Matter: In Defense of Single-State Studies.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 2 (4): 411–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Owens, Ryan J., Tahk, Alexander, Wohlfarth, Patrick C., and Bryan, Amanda C. 2015. “Nominating Commissions, Judicial Retention, and Forward-Looking Behavior on State Supreme Courts: An Empirical Examination of Selection and Retention Methods.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 15 (2): 211–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sartori, Anne E. 2003. “An Estimator for Some Binary-Outcome Selection Models without Exclusion Restrictions.” Political Analysis 11 (2): 111–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwindt-Bayer, Leslie A. 2009. “Making Quotas Work: The Effect of Gender Quota Laws on the Election of Women.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 34 (1): 5–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, Maya. 2014. “How Judicial Qualification Ratings May Disadvantage Minority and Female Candidates.” Journal of Law and Courts 2 (1): 33–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shugerman, Jed Handelsman. 2012. The People’s Courts: Pursuing Judicial Independence in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Jessi L., Handley, Ian M., Zale, Alexander V., Rushing, Sara, and Potvin, Martha A. 2015. “Now Hiring! Empirically Testing a Three-Step Intervention to Increase Faculty Gender Diversity in STEM.” BioScience 65 (11): 1084–87.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Squire, Peverill. 2008. “Measuring the Professionalization of U.S. State Courts of Last Resort.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 8 (3): 223–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Streb, Matthew J., ed. 2009. Running for Judge: The Rising Political, Financial, and Legal Stakes of Judicial Elections. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Turner, George H. 1961. “Commentary on the Judicial Article.” Nebraska Law Review 40 (4): 621–25.Google Scholar
Winters, Glenn R. 1966. “Selection of Judges—an Historical Introduction.” Texas Law Review 44 (6): 1081–87.Google Scholar