The Little Sisters of the Poor v. Burwell, a 2016 landmark religious liberty case, illustrates the ongoing debate between religious non-profit organizations and the government regarding the contraception mandate of the Affordable Care Act. Although the Little Sisters, in part because of their public relations and political advantages, received a relatively favorable outcome at the Supreme Court, their true successes lie on their impact on conservative politics and on the 2016 election. The Little Sisters became a significant component of political and religious leaders’ strategy to reframe the issue.

This study examines the agenda setting and decision-making behavior of the United States Supreme Court from 1888 to 1989.

This investigation sought to identify linkages between the Texas Supreme Court and public opinion through 1) a matching of written decisions with scientifically conducted public opinion polls; 2) direct mention of public opinion and its synonyms in Texas justices' decisions; 3) comparison of these mentions over time; and 4) comparison of 10 personal attributes of justices with matched decisions. The study moved the unit of analysis from the U.S. Supreme Court to the state court level by using classification schemes and attribute models previously applied to the U.S. Supreme Court. It determined that linkages exist between the Texas Supreme Court's written decisions and public opinion from 1978 to July 1994.

This study will remain with the role of the Supreme Court, and then only with its role in the character of interpretation as far as the necessitation of a new type of police power is concerned.

The relationships among governmental institutions are some of the most studied phenomena in political science. Yet these complex interactions remain largely unexplained due to the difficult task of developing accurate measures that lead to quantifiable tests that enhance explanation and prediction. This work centers on the interactions of United States Supreme Court justices with other political actors. The goal of this dissertation is to better understand the relationship between the Supreme Court and its institutional environment. In short, I ask: What factors affect Supreme Court justices’ voting decisions? I approach this question from several different angles while making use of a unique dependent variable—Yearly Supreme Court justice ideal point. This variable is a variant of the ideal points calculated by Michael A. Bailey of Georgetown University (Bailey, 2007). My empirical models consider the effects of numerous independent variables on this dependent variable. One of the unique aspects of this study is that it considers the effects of a wide variety of factors purported to affect judicial behavior. There are four main theories of judicial decision-making, and my empirical analyses test notions exported from all of them. In designing and testing my models, I draw especially on the developing approach of new institutionalism—an approach to the study of judicial politics that emphasizes the influence of external, non-judicial political actors on judicial behavior. Ultimately this work will show what factors constrain the actions of Supreme Court justices and to what degree they do so. This research has many implications for larger theoretical concerns of political science, specifically formulating questions about the independence of the judiciary and contains relevant questions for democratic theory as well.

The ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791 brought freedom of the press into the sphere of constitutional legitimacy such that it could not be nullified by the whims of elected officials. Traditionally the guarantee of a free press has been treated as an adjunct of the Speech Clause with little, if any, independent status. Recently, however, that traditional conception has come under increasing attack. Many attorneys, judges and academicians have argued for a separation of the Press and Speech Clauses. For example, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart has stated his belief that the Press Clause is a structural guarantee which provides greater First Amendment protection to the press than that generally accorded the public. Therefore, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Zurcher v. Stanford Daily (1978) that ratified searches of non-suspect, third-party newsmen exemplified for these supporters the nadir of press freedom in recent years. In this study the importance of the Zurcher decision to public policy, public law and legal studies is examined in detail. The study utilizes the systems model popularized by David Easton to observe the events leading up to the decision and both the judicial and legislative responses to that decision. In addition, a new theory of press freedom is presented which analogizes the Press Clause to the Free Exercise of Religion Clause. This theory suggests that the Press Clause should be separated from the Speech Clause in the same way as the Free Exercise Clause has been separated. This would establish the Press Clause as an independent clause granting a special status to the press: a status which the author believes to be warranted by the language of the First Amendment and the absolute necessity for a press free of governmental intrusion and regulation.

This dissertation seeks to describe and explain the connection between The Supreme Court and politics outside of the judicial system. It is a case study of the reaction to the Brown v. Board of Education integration decision in the American South. I apply a theoretical model of “judicialization,” arguing that when courts affect politics outside of the judicial system, they reshape politics to resemble the adversarial legal system, sparking polarized conflict and causing non-judicial political actors to make arguments in the form of constitutional doctrine. Analyzing editorials and letters to the editor from Southern newspapers, I show that debate after Brown was characterized by appeals to constitutional principles, and that Brown increased the salience of segregation in schools as a subject of political debate. I also supplement my Southern newspaper data with data from African-American newspapers and analyze Southern elections in the periods immediately before and after the education integration decision to assess the impact of the Court’s education decision on both voters and candidates. / text

This study is concerned with the political impact of the Supreme Court's decisions concerning state legislative apportionment. First, an attempt is made to describe the political environment in which they were made, with special reference to the existing bases of representation in the states and the political reaction to the decisions. Secondly, the study traces the major issues relating to judicial enforcement of the apportionment standards enunciated by the Supreme Court and the modification and development of those standards that followed the initial decisions. Finally, the extent to which reapportionment has been successfully enforced by the courts may suggest some tentative conclusions about the viability and utility of the equal population doctrine as a constitutional standard, as well as some of the possible political consequences of enforcement of that standard.

This thesis attempts to answer the following questions: (1) has Hugo Black abandoned his philosophy of the "absoluteness" of the First Amendment which has long been his basis of decision-making in problems involving the First Amendment, and (2) has he ceased to maintain his strong position for individual liberties?

The problem undertaken is a study of the Senate's right to refuse confirmation of presidential nominations to the Supreme Court of the United States and its interpretation of this constitutional prerogative today. A case study of the nomination and rejection of Abe Fortas is used to illustrate the contemporary role of the Senate and to serve as a basis for predictions for future nominations.