Money in Judicial Politics: Individual Contributions and Collective Decisions

Abstract

We study how campaign contributions aect the voting strategies and eectivenessof justices in the Supreme Court of eight US states. A judge's voting strategy leansmore heavily towards an interest group the larger are its contributions to the judge,and the smaller are its contributions to other members of the court. This indirecteect is consistent with an equilibrium adjustment to contributions to other membersof the court. Observed contributions have a large eect on the behavior of individualjudges { aecting both the probability that they vote to overturn a decision of thelower court and the probability that they support an incorrect decision { but theyhave a small eect on the decisions and eectiveness of the Court.We study how campaign contributions aect the voting strategies and effectiveness of justices in the Supreme Court of eight US states. A judge's voting strategy leansmore heavily towards an interest group the larger are its contributions to the judge,and the smaller are its contributions to other members of the court. This indirecteffect is consistent with an equilibrium adjustment to contributions to other members of the court. Observed contributions have a large effect on the behavior of individual judges -acting both the probability that they vote to overturn a decision of the lower court and the probability that they support an incorrect decision - but they have a small effect on the decisions and effectiveness of the Court.