Judicial Review of Administrative Decisions

Abstract

Scholars focusing on court-agency relationships at the federal level have generally neglected the role played by the courts of appeals. Exploring agency cases coming before the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (1981-1984), this analysis reveals fairly strong support for the positions of federal agencies taken as a whole. Considerable variance, however, exists across both individual judges and specific agencies. Although much of the variance remains unaccounted for, the political environment of each agency sampled and the background characteristics of the court's judges provide a partial explanation. Of the individual background attributes isolated, party affiliation appears to have the most significance, with Republican judges displaying the highest levels of agency support.