Federalism Outcomes and Ideological Preferences: The U.S. Supreme Court and Preemption Cases

Abstract

The record of the U.S. Supreme Court in decisions affecting federal-state relations has been one of inconsistency between states'rights and national supremacy. This inconsistency has perplexed both legal and political science scholars who have had great difficulty placing decision-making regardingfederalism outcomes by the Court in any sort of theoretical context. Contrary to much conventional wisdom, ideological preferences do not automatically translate into federalism outcomes. We extend models ofjudicial decisionmaking in political environments by including state policy. State policy outcomes may be either more liberal or more conservative than the policy would be underfederal control. Thus, the ideological preferences of the justices may contradict their preferences toward nationalism or states' rights. Testing the model using 94 preemption cases, we find that individual justices and most Courts are willing to sacrifice their federalism values in the pursuit of some other policy goal. This finding has implications for both the federalism literature and strategic models of Court behavior, as well as for cases the Court is currently reviewing.