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A rare look inside Michigan politics
This book explores how the lower federal court appointment process became vastly politicized in the modern era. Scherer develops a theory of “elite mobilization,” positing that lower court appointments have always been used by politicians for electoral purposes, but because of two historic changes to American institutions in the 1950s and 1960s—the breakdown of the old party system, and a federal judiciary reception to expanding individuals’ constitutional rights—politicians shifted from an appointment system dominated by patronage to a system dominated by new policy-oriented appointment strategies. The use of these new strategies not only resulted in partisan warfare during the nomination and confirmation stages of the appointment process, but also led to party-polarized voting in the lower federal courts. Employing exclusive data of judicial decision-making from the New Deal era through the present, Scherer demonstrates that there was little party-polarized voting in the lower federal courts until the late 1960s, and that once politicians began to use elite mobilization strategies, significant party-polarized voting in the lower federal courts resulted. Accordingly, elite mobilization strategies have affected not only politics in Washington, but also the way justice is distributed across the country.
Who gets seated on the lower federal courts and why? Why are some nominees confirmed easily while others travel a long, hard road to confirmation? What role do senators and interest groups play in determining who will become a federal judge? The lower federal courts have increasingly become the final arbiters of the important political and social issues of the day. As a result, who gets seated on the bench has become a major political issue. In Battle over the Bench, Amy Steigerwalt argues that the key to understanding the dynamics of the lower court confirmation process is to examine the process itself. She offers a new analytic framework for understanding when nominations become contested, and shows when and how key actors can influence the fate of nominations and ultimately determine who will become a federal judge. Given the increasing salience of lower court decisions, it is not surprising that interest groups and partisan agendas play an important role. Steigerwalt inventories the means by which senators push through or block nominations, and why interest groups decide to support or oppose certain nominations. The politics of judicial confirmations do not end there, however. Steigerwalt also reveals how many nominees are blocked for private political reasons that have nothing to do with ideology, while senators may use their support for or opposition to nominees as bargaining chips to garner votes for their positions on unrelated issues. Battle over the Bench showcases the complex and, at times, hidden motivations driving the staffing of the federal bench.