abstract: The American courts have become increasingly central to many important political debates. The marriage equality debate, the boundaries between religious freedom and society, the death penalty, eminent domain and many other contemporary issues that have direct effects on the lives of all Americans continue to play out in the court systems. While Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 82 sees the federal and state courts as complementary, this research sees these courts as often-rival political venues that political interests make strategic choices about taking legal actions in. Prior research finds that political interests turn to the state courts for two reasons: The structure of law creates a legal incentive and the political interests have access to state level resources, e.g. attorneys skilled in the laws of a state. Yet, there appear to be important gaps in existing theory. A distinction between state and national political interests is seemingly important. State political interests are embedded within their state political communities; consequently these interests should have strong attachments with their respective state courts. Also, state political interests can be expected to select courts on the basis of political ideology and state judicial selection methods. Prior research has shown the connection between these factors and judicial decision-making, but not interest group participation. To examine these areas of uncertainty, this research collected more than 3500 observations of the participation of political interests in the American courts. Two legal areas were selected: eminent domain and marriage equality. Ultimately, this study finds that state political interests develop strong attachments to their respective state courts and are more likely to enter into the state courts than their nationally-oriented counterparts. This research also finds that judicial ideology and state judicial selection both influence the decision to enter into the state courts. This shows a relationship between these factors and the decision to enter into the state courts. It also suggests that these factors not only affect the choices that judges make, but other actors as well, including political interests. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Political Science 2017

In the mid-1970s, state courts began to interpret state constitutions independently of the federal constitution in a way that provided greater protection for individual rights at the state versus federal level. Scholars have generally attributed the rise of this movement, known as state constitutionalism, to the actions and scholarship of judges and point to the cause as a fear that the Burger court would rollback Warren court era protections for individual rights. In reality, the concept of state constitutionalism had been present throughout the 1950s-1970s period of state constitutional revision and was deeply influenced by concerns over the status of the federal system. Montana's 1972 Constitutional Convention illustrates the role that constitutional revision had in the subsequent adoption of state constitutionalism. In particular, the creation, adoption, and interpretation of two provisions--the privacy and dignity clauses--shows that the public was engaged in a conscious decision to go beyond the federal protections for individual rights. Montana's experience suggests that further research is needed in order for scholars to fully understand the rise and adoption of state constitutionalism.