Politicians engage in messaging in attempts to score points with their constituencies and, if possible, mobilize them in support of political outcomes. For members of the U.S. Congress (especially senators, who have a constitutionally designated role in staffing the U.S. Supreme Court), major court cases provide an ideal opportunity for this behavior. In this paper, we examine when senators communicate with the public about salient Court cases and how they employ legal rhetoric and legislative rhetoric when doing so. We argue that these behaviors depend on a legislator’s constituency, personal traits, and institutional position. We conduct two complementary analyses of rates of messaging about salient cases and the language used in abortion cases from 2012 to 2024 and find support for our argument. Our findings contribute to scholarly understanding of how legislators represent their constituencies, illuminate the sources of American attitudes toward the judiciary, and shed light on an understudied form of separation-of-powers interactions between two branches of American government.
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