This project examines the relationship between courts and legislatures in a comparative perspective, considering how legislative outcomes are impacted by the judicial branch across and within states. Specifically, this dissertation asks three fundamental questions. First, do state legislatures alter their behavior in anticipation of judicial response when the legislature introduces policy and enacts legislation? Second, does legislative behavior in stage one (i.e., introductory stage) impact behavior in the enactment stage? Third, does court preemptive power vary across policy areas? To address these questions, the investigator will examine the factors expected to influence legislative behavior vis-a-vis state supreme courts, in all fifty states during 1990 to 2000. Hypotheses about the role of state supreme courts in the policymaking arena will be tested in both the bill introduction and enactment stages of the policy process, and across two policy areas: 1) education policy and 2) the regulation of Health Management Organizations (HMO regulation). Three main factors are expected to assist the legislative branch with their assessment of whether the court is hostile or friendly: 1) ideological distance between state legislatures and state supreme courts, 2) likelihood of court intervention (i.e., proportion of state supreme court docket devoted to a specific policy area), and 3) ideological disposition of cases decided by state supreme courts (within a given issue). The goal of this project is to provide a more complete model of the policy process that underscores the policymaking role of the judicial branch and recognizes the interactions among governmental branches. Fundamentally, this research will shed light on the perennial debate regarding the impact of courts on policy through a comparative and longitudinal examination of legislative behavior vis-a-vis state supreme courts in two stages of the policy process across two policy areas.
