Who Drives the Ideological Makeup of the Lower Federal Courts in a Divided Government?

Abstract

In this article, I examine whether divided government has any meaningful impact on the type of judges appointed to the lower federal courts. Specifically, I compare the voting behavior of Clinton judges confirmed before and after the Republicans took majority control of the Senate as well as the voting behavior of judges appointed by President Reagan before and after the Democrats took control of the Senate in the 1980s in order to detect whether judges appointed under divided government are more moderate than those under unified government. Believing that the Senate lacks the resources to have a meaningful impact in shaping judicial ideology on the lower federal courts—as hundreds of judges must be confirmed during the course of a presidential administration—I hypothesize that there is no difference in voting behavior between judges appointed under united and divided government. Consistent with my hypothesis, I find that there is no difference in voting behavior between judges appointed during united and divided government in three critical issue areas: search and seizure cases, race discrimination cases, and federalism cases. This was true of judges appointed during the Clinton and Reagan presidencies, and was true in all three issue areas tested.