On March 4, 2004, the Library of Congress released more than 1,576 boxes of documents containing the papers of the late Justice Harry A. Blackmun. Blackmun, who served on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1970-1994, was a critical jurist during the Warren and Rehnquist Courts, and his papers offer a wealth of information to researchers studying the Court. The proposed research will utilize the recently released papers to investigate the changes on the decisional dynamics associated with the ascension of William Rehnquist to the position of Chief Justice in 1986. In particular, the research examines the changes that have taken place on the decisional processes of the Rehnquist Court. The PI proposes that the changes in the Rehnquist Court -- including its moves toward multiply "in-part" case dispositions, and its corresponding move to what Sunstein has called a jurisprudence of "judicial minimalism" -- are both the results of an increased shared tendency toward (a) individualism in opinion writing, and (b) a collective view of the judiciary as the authoritative interpreter of statutory and constitutional doctrine. This SGER will support the PI during that data collection enterprise during summer, 2004.
