Correcting the Record: Congressional Efforts to Curb the Supreme Court,1989–2008

Abstract

Tom Clark’s (2009; 2011) conclusion that the Supreme Court moderates itself in response to court curbing legislation has changed the way scholars view court curbing. In extending Clark’s data, however, the author discovered the omission of many relevant bills. Omissions include bills that are similar or identical to those in the existing data, as well as previously unidentified approaches to court curbing. Taking these omissions into account revises our understanding of two important quantities of interest—the annual frequency and ideological distribution of court curbing bills. More comprehensive data further reveal that the great bulk of court curbing bills are introduced in the first session of Congress, or were between 1989 and 2008. Overlooking this structural feature of the data raises serious problems of causal inference for studies assuming that annual changes in court curbing activity reflect shifting congressional appraisals of the Court. Finally, these data contradict the claim that most court curbing is “broad,” or focused on institutional reform; between 1989 and 2008, most court curbing was decidedly “narrow,” or tailored to easily identifiable policy areas. These data reflect this insight by including information about the case or line of cases under attack for each narrow bill.