Congressional Attacks on Supreme Court Rulings Involving Unconstitutional State Laws

Abstract

In recent years scholars of both the Supreme Court and the Congress have begun to devote increasing attention to congressional attempts to reverse Court decisions declaring federal statutes unconstitutional, while Court decisions involving state laws have not garnered nearly the same amount of attention. We know that the Court strikes down state laws with far greater frequency than federal laws and that many of the most contentious issues facing the Supreme Court, the Congress, and the nation have arisen at the state level. It is our purpose to develop a model of congressional decision reversal action regarding all state laws declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court from 1953 through 1990. Using both probit and regression models we find that the electoral concerns of members of Congress, the nature of the issue the Court addresses and the degree of federal govern mental impact of the Court decision are all significant predictors of both the likelihood of a response and the extent of the congressional response.