Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xm8r8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-07T06:57:44.013Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Justice for Sale? Campaign Contributions and Judicial Decisionmaking

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Damon M. Cann
Damon M. Cann*
Affiliation:
University of Georgia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

As state judicial campaigns become progressively more expensive and political, judicial candidates have turned more frequently to lawyers and law firms for campaign contributions. Given that lawyers who contribute to judges' campaigns frequently appear before them in court, the potential for a conflict of interest arises. I ask whether judges are more likely to rule in favor of attorneys who provide financial support to their campaigns. Looking at cases decided in the Supreme Court of Georgia's 2003 term, I show that campaign contributions are indeed correlated with judges' decisions. Furthermore, I use a two-stage probit least squares estimator to show that these campaign contributions directly affect judicial decisionmaking.

Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , Fall 2007 , pp. 281 - 297
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association, 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Amemiya, Takeshi. 1978. “The Estimation of a Simultaneous Equation Generalized Probit Model.” Econometrica 46:1193–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benesh, Sarah C., and Martinek, Wendy. 2002. “State Court Decision Making in Confession Cases.” Justice System Journal 23:109–33.Google Scholar
Bonneau, Chris W. 2005. “What Price Justice(s)? Understanding Campaign Spending in State Supreme Court Elections.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 5:107–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brace, Paul, and Hall, Melinda Gann. 1990. “Neo-Institutionalism and Dissent in State Supreme Courts.” Journal of Politics 52:54–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brace, Paul, Langer, Laura, and Hall, Melinda Gann. 2000. “Measuring the Preferences of State Supreme Court Judges.” Journal of Politics 62:387–413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cann, Damon M. 2002. “Campaign Contributions and Judicial Behavior.” American Review of Politics 23:261–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Champagne, Anthony. 1986. “The Selection and Retention of Judges in Texas.” Southwestern Law Journal 40:66–117.Google Scholar
Champagne, Anthony. 1988. “Judicial Reform in Texas.” Judicature 72:146–61.Google Scholar
Chappell, Henry W. 1982. “Campaign Contributions and Congressional Voting: A Simultaneous Probit-Tobit Model.” Review of Economics and Statistics 64:77–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Comparato, Scott A., and McClurg, Scott. 2002. “State Supreme Court Compliance with Supreme Court Precedent.” Presented at the Annual Meetings of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL.Google Scholar
Davis, Richard. 2005. Electing Justice: Fixing the Supreme Court Nomination Process Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dubois, Philip. 1980. From Ballot to Bench: Judicial Elections and the Quest for Accountability. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Elazar, Daniel J. 1972. American Federalism: A View from the States. New York, NY: Thomas Y. Crowell.Google Scholar
Gibson, James L. 1978. “Judges' Role Orientations, Attitudes, and Decisions: An Interactive Model.” American Political Science Review 72:911–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, Deborah, Samis, Sarah, Bender, Edwin, and Weiss, Rachel. 2005. The New Politics of Judicial Elections 2004. Washington, DC: Justice at Stake Campaign.Google Scholar
Goldberg, Deborah, and Sanchez, Samantha. 2004. The New Politics of Judicial Elections 2002. Washington, DC: Justice at Stake Campaign.Google Scholar
Grenzke, Janet. 1989. “Shopping in the Congressional Supermarket: The Currency Is Complex.” American Journal of Political Science 33:1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Melinda Gann. 2001. “State Supreme Courts in American Democracy: Probing the Myths of Judicial Reform.” American Political Science Review 95:315–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Melinda Gann, and Bonneau, Chris W.. 2006. “Does Quality Matter? Challengers in State Supreme Court Elections.” American Journal of Political Science 50:20–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, Mark. 1991. “The High Cost of Judging.” ABA Journal 77:44.Google Scholar
Jackson, Donald W., and Riddlesperger, James W.. 1991. “Money and Politics in Judicial Elections: The 1988 Election of the Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court.” Judicature 74:184–9.Google Scholar
Johnston, Michael. 1983. “Corruption and Political Culture in America: An Empirical Perspective.” Publius 13:19–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maddala, G.S. 1983. Limited-Dependent and Qualitative Variables in Econometrics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayhew, David. 1974. Congress: The Electoral Connection. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
McCall, Madhavi. 2003. “The Politics of Judicial Elections: The Influence of Campaign Contributions on the Voting Patterns of Texas Supreme Court Justices, 1994–1997.”CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Politics and Policy 31:314–43.Google Scholar
McCall, Madhavi. 2001. “Buying Justice in Texas: The Influence of Campaign Contributions on the Voting Behavior of Texas Supreme Court Justices.” American Review of Politics 22:349–73.Google Scholar
Newey, Whitney. 1987. “Simultaneous Estimation of Limited Dependent Variable Models with Endogenous Explanatory Variables.” Journal of Econometrics 36:231–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Segal, Jeffrey, and Spaeth, Harold. 1993. The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schotland, Roy. 1985. “Elective Judges' Campaign Financing: Are State Judges' Robes the Emperor's Clothes of American Democracy?” Journal of Law and Politics 2:57–167.Google Scholar
Waltenburg, Eric N., and Lopeman, Charles S.. 2000 “Tort Decisions and Campaign Dollars.” Southeastern Political Review 28:241–63.Google Scholar
Ware, Stephen J. 1999. “Money, Politics, and Judicial Decisions: A Case Study of Arbitration Law in Alabama.” Journal of Law and Politics 25:645–86.Google Scholar
Wright, John R. 1990. “Contributions, Lobbying and Committee Voting in the U.S. House of Representatives.” American Political Science Review 84:417–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, John R. 1996. Interest Groups and Congress: Lobbying, Contributions, and Influence. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.Google Scholar
Wyatt, Benjamin J. 2002. The Origins of State Public Financing of Elections. Unpublished Honors Thesis, Wesleyan University.Google Scholar