The Multi-Staged Process of Judicial Review: Facial and As-Applied Constitutional Challenges to Legislation Before the U.S. Supreme Court

Abstract

The Supreme Court's decision to invalidate a legislative enactment involves both the choice to strike as well as the choice whether to invalidate the statute on its face or as applied. Both choices implicate the possibility of counteraction by the legislature. In this paper, we evaluate the justices' choices to invalidate a state or federal enactment on its face or as applied using a Heckman probit technique, and find that the justices are responsive to both Congressional preferences over the substance of the challenged enactment, as well as the Court's ideological position relative to the two chambers of Congress. These findings suggest that the Court's exercise of judicial review is significantly influenced by Congress, both as to the choice to strike as well as to the method of constitutional enforcement.