Towards an Integrated Model of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Federalism Decision Making

Disputes involving the boundaries of state versus federal power make up a substantial portion of the U.S. Supreme Court’s docket and have undergone extensive analysis. Yet, the conventional wisdom regarding the justices’choices in these cases is that they are highly inconsistent. I argue that this is primarily a function of the failure of scholars to develop a comprehensive model of the justices’ federalism decision making. To remedy this, I introduce an integrated model of the individual justices’ choices in these cases, which is then subjected to empirical testing in the Rehnquist Court era (1986^2004). I explore a host of determinants of the justices’decisionmaking, including attitudinal, institutional, legal, and personal attributes, as well as the role of organized interests in the Court. The findings reveal that the choices justices make in these cases are not as discordant as most commentators suggest. Rather, they are relatively predictable through the application of an integrated model of judicial choice.