University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 5-2012 Elevating Justice: The Strategic Elevation of District Court Judges to the Courts of Appeals Mikel Aaron Norris [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Norris, Mikel Aaron, "Elevating Justice: The Strategic Elevation of District Court Judges to the Courts of Appeals. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2012. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/1332 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Mikel Aaron Norris entitled "Elevating Justice: The Strategic Elevation of District Court Judges to the Courts of Appeals." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Political Science. John M. Scheb, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Nathan J. Kelly, Anthony J. Nownes, Lois Presser Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Elevating Justice: The Strategic Elevation of District Court Judges to the Courts of Appeals A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree University of Tennessee, Knoxville Mikel Aaron Norris May, 2012 Copyright © Mikel A. Norris. All rights reserved ii DEDICATION To Mom and Dad In partial fulfillment of my Fifth Commandment duties iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS If there is one thing that I have learned from writing this dissertation is that it is a task that cannot be accomplished alone. So many people have helped me during my time in graduate school to lead me to this moment that to recognize them all would consume as many pages as the actual text of this dissertation. That being said, there are several people I feel should be recognized by name for their assistance and support. First, I want to thank my dissertation chair Dr. John Scheb for his support and assistance. He has been a true shepherd for me during this process. He has kept me motivated, and kept my attention focused. He has provided invaluable advice throughout my time at the University of Tennessee, and has been an excellent leader for our entire department as our department head. I am extremely grateful to have such an excellent chair. I also want to thank Dr. Nathan Kelly for his assistance and motivation during my time at the University of Tennessee. I deeply admire his research agenda, and highly respect his capabilities. He has challenged me to give my best efforts in all of my academic pursuits (and especially in his classes!). He is a great teacher and scholar. Thank you for being part of my dissertation committee. A special thank you must be given to Dr. Tony Nownes for his support. His invaluable advice throughout this process has helped me to overcome many obstacles. He has taught me to think and write clearly, to handle a classroom, and to appreciate Garamond font. I also want to thank him for providing me with the faculty study in which this dissertation was written. Thank you for being a great scholar, teacher, and friend. Also thanks must be given to Dr. Lois Presser for joining my dissertation committee. She has been especially helpful and accommodating to me during this process. It is nice to see that other departments at the University of Tennessee also have incredible faculty. Although they were not members of my dissertation committee, I must also thank Drs. Michael Gant, David Brule, David Houston, and Patricia Freeland for their assistance. Each has contributed to my dissertation and my educational experience as a whole at the University of Tennessee in his or her own way. Thank you for what you have done for me, and for all of the graduate students in our department. I would also like to thank Sue Howerton, Laura Cosey, and the late Debbie McCauley for providing such wonderful support to our department. Special thanks are in order for Drs. Robert Behrman, George Davis, Jamie Warner, and especially Marybeth Beller for helping me to earn my Master’s degree at Marshall University. You have seen me at my darkest academic moment, and you helped me through it. If it was not for your encouragement, understanding, and friendship I would not have had the confidence to finish this journey. iv I must also extend much thanks to the many graduate students I have had the utmost privilege to work with at the University of Tennessee. There are way too many to mention by name here, but these individuals have all helped me to achieve this goal in their own ways that I will never forget: Nurgul Aitelieva, Amy Atchison, Michael Berry, Melissa Buice, Joshua Cole, John Dickey, Sam Evans, Rebecca Falls, Norris Feeney, Tyler Garner, Sambuddha Ghatak, Jill Gilbert, Colin Glennon, Matthew Gross, Lauren Harding, Sarah Jeffords, Mandy Johnson, Jeff Long, Allyn Milojevich, Brandon O’Neill, Amanda Sanford, David Scott, Rebecca Shafer, Hemant Sharma, Amber Sheets, Chris Shults, Doug Spence, Dorian Stiefel, Jamie Todhunter, Kristin Wagers, Chris Wilson, Marissa Wilson, Sarah Wu, and Sarah Young. Thank you all for your support and friendship, and for developing a great sense of community that I will always consider myself a part of. Thank you Dr. Bradley Schuller for being a great friend and advisor over the years, and for convincing me to go to graduate school. Your advice throughout the years has been priceless and has never been wrong. Maybe now we can get back to our conversation about the evils of the direct election of senators. Finally, I must thank my family for supporting me throughout my years in graduate school and for providing so much encouragement for me during this process. First, I must thank my sister Marla, my brother-in-law Rick, and my nephews Jacob and Landon, for their love and support which I feel every day. Lastly, I must thank Mom and Dad for their overwhelming love and support during this process. You knew that I needed to take this path nearly seven years before I did. Your support has been unwavering and your love even more so. This dissertation belongs to everyone mentioned in these pages and more; but if it belongs to anyone especially it belongs to the both of you. v ABSTRACT Traditionally, a president elevated district court judges to vacant appellate court positions because to do so would give the president an opportunity not only to place a judge sharing his preferences on an appellate court, but also to give him the opportunity to fill the newly created district court position with another judge sharing his preferences. This is the ultimate example of strategic behavior. However, presidents do not always take this course of action when filling vacant appellate court positions. The purpose of this dissertation is to understand why. This dissertation examines how presidents have used elevations from 1969 to 2008 to fill vacant appellate court positions. The analyses herein do find that presidents use elevations strategically, but not in the strategic ways discussed in the current literature. The first part of this dissertation discusses how the several presidents since 1969 used elevations to fill vacant appellate court positions. This analysis shows that different presidents use elevations in different contexts. For example, divided government, party affiliation of the president, the location of the appellate court vacancy and the partisan composition of the court where the vacancy occurs, and the number of home-state senators all affect when a president will use elevations to fill vacant appellate court positions. The next section of this dissertation uses multivariate regression to empirically assess when a president is likely to use elevations. I posit that presidents use elevations to stop potential policy entrepreneurs from thwarting their nominees. I find support for this theory. I specifically find that presidents are likely to elevate district court judges when they are well qualified and when the partisan composition of an appellate court hangs in the balance. Finally, I test whether using elevations helps the president get his district court nominees to positions created via elevation more quickly than other nominees. Results show that those chosen to fill district court positions created via elevation are nominated and confirmed more quickly than other district court nominees. I do not find evidence that they are more closely aligned ideologically to their nominating president than other district court nominees. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: Introduction and Explanation of Research Design………………………….1 Section 1.1: Fundamental Research Questions……………………………………........1 Section 1.2: What is an Elevation? …………………………………………………….5 Section 1.2.i: The Elevation of Judge William Traxler…………………………..6 Section 1.2.ii: The Elevation of Judge Michael Melloy………………………….9 Section 1.3: Theoretical Relevance to the Discipline………………………………….12 Section 1.4: Data Sources, Units of Analysis,