OFFICE OF THE SOLICITOR GENERAL PARTICIPATION BEFORE THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT: INFLUENCES ON THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Corey A. Ditslear, B.A., J.D., M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2003 Dissertation Committee: Approved by: Professor Lawrence Baum, Adviser Professor Gregory A. Caldeira _____________________________ Adviser Professor Richard Timpone Department of Political Science Copyright by Corey Alan Ditslear 2003 ABSTRACT My dissertation is a study of the influence exerted by the Office of the Solicitor General on the decision-making of the United States Supreme Court. Current models of Supreme Court decision-making place a high or exclusive reliance on ideology as the indicator of how the justices vote. However, research has also shown that the Office of the Solicitor General, the chief attorneys on behalf of the United States government, is significantly more successful before the Court than the average attorney. This success may require modification of the current understanding of the decision-making of the Supreme Court to include an element of influence outside the justices’ ideological preferences. Previous research has focused on the success of the Office of the Solicitor General without delving into whether that success was a result of case selection by the Office of the Solicitor General, congruence of ideologies between the Office of the Solicitor General and the members of the Supreme Court, or some influence by the Office of the Solicitor General. This dissertation explores whether the Office of the Solicitor General’s success is the result of influence on the justices by controlling for the justices’ ideologies and the other potential influences on the justices’ decisions such as public opinion, Congress, state governments, petitioner bias, and the experience of the attorneys for the period of 1953-1999. I find that the Office of the Solicitor General does exert an independent influence on the decisions of the justices that is robust across a ii variety of different subcategories of the data as well as for the entire dataset. The influence of the Office of the Solicitor General is on a par with the impact of the justices’ own ideologies. Thus the influence of the Office of the Solicitor General can completely counter-balance the ideologies of the justices or when added to the impact of the ideologies, can make it virtually impossible for the position espoused by the government to lose. Because of this finding, I have used the subcategories of data to begin to explore the sources of the Office of the Solicitor General’s influence. The subcategories reveal that the sources of the Office of the Solicitor General’s influence include a general bias in favor of the government, variance in issue areas, and case selection by the Office of the Solicitor General. This research suggests that any attempt to model the decisions of the United States Supreme Court must include a component recognizing the influence of the executive branch as represented by the Office of the Solicitor General. iii Dedicated to my wife, Samantha K. Stalnaker, and my sons, Khyrien and Bryce iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my adviser, Larry Baum, for his guidance, prodding, and encouragement throughout this project, without which I may have spent another 12 years in school. I thank Greg Caldeira for his always skeptical, yet always helpful thoughts on the dissertation. I thank Rich Timpone for his devotion to making me understand the methods I employ better than I thought ever would. I am grateful for the comments and critiques provided by those who attended the Research in American Politics colloquia for which I presented early stages of this material. I am also indebted to Kevin Scott, Scott Menke, Jason Mycoff, Kim Conger, Margie Williams and Ed Hasecke for their camaraderie during graduate school, the almost constant discussion of research ideas and methods, and the cohort support group that I hope will continue long into the future. I am grateful to Jim Brudney for helping me make the transition from lawyer to political science academic. Finally, I pay special thanks to my wife Samantha for allowing me to switch careers in mid-stream and supporting me through some trying times. v VITA October 15, 1969....................................... Born - Tiffin, Ohio 1992.......................................................... B.A. English, The Ohio State University 1995.......................................................... J.D. Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University 2000.......................................................... M.A. Political Science, The Ohio State University 1997 - 2003............................................... Graduate Teaching and Research Assistant The Ohio State University PUBLICATIONS 1. Ditslear, Corey A., Engel v. Vitale, in Carl Singleton, ed., The Sixties in America (Pasadena: Salem Press, 1999). 2. Ditslear, Corey A. and Lawrence Baum. 2001.“Pipelines and Polarization: Selection of Law Clerks and Ideological Behavior”, 63 Journal of Politics 3:869-885. 3. Brudney, James J. and Corey A. Ditslear. 2001. “Designated Diffidence: District Court Judges on the Courts of Appeals.” 35 Law and Society Review 3:565-606. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Political Science vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract................................................................................................................ ii Dedication............................................................................................................ iv Acknowledgments................................................................................................ v Vita....................................................................................................................... vi List of Figures...................................................................................................... ix Chapters: 1. Introduction............................................................................................... 1 2. History and Background of the Office of the Solicitor General............... 13 3. Integrating Theories of Success and Influence with Models of Supreme Court Decision-Making............................................................................ 37 A. Success..................................................................................... 39 B. Influence................................................................................... 52 C. Supreme Court Decision-Making............................................. 60 D. Models and Methods................................................................ 65 1. Dependent Variables..................................................... 68 2. Independent Variables.................................................. 71 4. Finding Success and Influence: Macro-Level Analyses........................... 89 A. Data.......................................................................................... 90 B. Re-analyzing McGuire............................................................. 97 C. Influence Models...................................................................... 103 5. Influence Under a Variety of Circumstances............................................ 120 A. Court Variance Models............................................................ 121 B. Political Variance Models........................................................ 150 C. Case Variance Models.............................................................. 171 D. Office of the Solicitor General Cases...................................... 187 E. Conclusions.............................................................................. 199 vii 6. Conclusions and Future Research............................................................. 201 Appendix A: Alternate Measures of Supreme Court Preferences........................ 211 Appendix B: Modeling Experience Advantage.................................................... 212 Bibliography......................................................................................................... 215 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1 Solicitors General of the United States (1870-2002)............................... 21 2 United States Government Participation Before the Supreme Court: All Cases, Merits Decisions, and Argued Cases, 1950-1998................... 28 3 Summary of the Success of the Office of the Solicitor General as Petitioner/Appellant Compared to Non-Governmental Petitioners/ Appellants before the Supreme Court on Jurisdictional Questions, 1950-1998................................................................................................. 32 4 Summary of the Success Rate of the Office of the Solicitor General as Petitioner and Respondent in Orally Argued Cases Compared to Other Participants, 1953-1999............................................................................ 34 5 Success Rate of the United States and Federal Agencies as Parties to a Case in Orally Argued Cases Before the Supreme Court, 1953-1994..... 35 6 Hypotheses Posited to Explain the Success of the Office of the Solicitor General before the United States Supreme Court...................... 55 7 Dependent Variables Employed in Chapter 4 and 5 Models.................... 70 8 List of all Variables Used in Models in Chapters 4 and 5 Including Indication of Model, Hypothesis,