Advocacy, Editorial Opinion, and Agenda Building: How Publicity Friends Fought for Louis D. Brandeis’s 1916 Supreme Court Confirmation

Abstract

Louis D. Brandeis’s “publicity friends” used agenda building to advocate for his confirmation as a Supreme Court Justice in 1916. Editors of the New Republic, Harper’s Weekly, and La Follette’s Weekly coordinated publicity efforts for Brandeis, their friend, fellow progressive, and political ally. Analysis of archival sources shows that these advocates strategically used publicity to support Brandeis and consciously engaged in advocacy agenda building and defensive agenda building to support Brandeis’s confirmation. The results of this study show publicity was used to advocate for Brandeis’s confirmation and to counter attacks on his reputation.