Statutory Constraint and State Supreme Courts: A Test of the Contingent Attitudinal Model.

Are state supreme court judges influenced by the contingent attitudinal model, similar to their federal colleagues? Stated another way, do these judges render decisions according to their ideological preferences, or are they constrained by the language of state statutes? Using data from the Judge Level State Supreme Court Database, we analyze the votes of individual judges in 1995 to determine whether their behavior is constrained by legislation. Our results indicate that more detailed language (resulting in statutes with higher word counts) significantly limits the discretion afforded to liberal judges while simultaneously facilitating the ideological voting of their conservative colleagues. These results suggest a theoretically important way of thinking about judicial behavior. Rather than conceptualizing the legal model and the attitudinal model as competitors, the empirical evidence suggests that legal influences and ideological influences also work in tandem in among state supreme courts. These judges are influenced by the contingent attitudinal model and, occasionally, the traditional tension exists and statutory language constrains the judges from voting ideologically. However, in other instances these two influences operate in a more dynamic and interdependent manner and we observe statutory language facilitating the expression of ideological voting among the judges. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]