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The Supreme Court as an Agent of Policy Drift: The Case of the NLRA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2022

WARREN SNEAD Open the ORCID record for WARREN SNEAD [Opens in a new window]
WARREN SNEAD*
Affiliation:
Northwestern University, United States
*
Warren Snead, PhD Candidate, Political Science Department, Northwestern University, United States, [email protected].
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Abstract

Scholars have made important advances in explaining policy drift, uncovering the prevalence of drift in veto-riddled systems, the importance of bureaucratic discretion and statutory ambiguity in combatting drift, and its feedback effects. Despite research demonstrating the potential for judicial action to alleviate drift, we know little about the potential for the Supreme Court to facilitate policy drift. I argue that the Supreme Court may operate as a powerful agent of drift by stripping statutes of ambiguity, foreclosing policy innovation in institutions outside of Congress, and curtailing bureaucratic discretion and authority. To demonstrate these mechanisms, I show how in the case of federal labor law, the Court’s jurisprudence addressing the right to strike, federal preemption, and National Labor Relations Board authority played a central role in gradually undoing the efficacy of The National Labor Relations Act. This inquiry has important implications for understanding public policy, judicial power, the development of American labor law, and American democracy.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 117 , Issue 2 , May 2023 , pp. 661 - 674
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

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