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Capacity, Attitudes, and Case Attributes: The Differential Success of the States before the United States Courts of Appeals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Rorie Spill Solberg  and
Leonard Ray
Rorie Spill Solberg
Affiliation:
Oregon State University
Leonard Ray
Affiliation:
Louisiana State University
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Abstract

In the past few decades, the states have gained more discretion over policy adoption and implementation. Some of this expanded discretion has resulted from federal court rulings, as the states have increasingly used these courts to achieve their policy goals. But some states are more successful in the federal courts than others. Why is this? We examine cases argued by states in the United States Courts of Appeals between 1970 and 1996 to answer this question. Contrary to research at the Supreme Court level, we find no overall trend that the states are becoming more efficacious in court over time. We also find that the differences among the states' success in court cannot be attributed simply, or even primarily, to disparities in resources. Rather, case attributes and judicial attitudes provide the best explanations for state success in the Courts of Appeals.

Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , Summer 2005 , pp. 147 - 167
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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