This project evaluates the president's ability to appoint judges who will support positions consistent with the executive administration's policy goals, combining quantitative and qualitative analyses. As part of a quantitative analysis examining several administrations, this project explores several measurements of presidential policy preferences as the main independent variable. Constructed against general frameworks of policy implementation and impact, I hypothesize that presidents considered more "liberal" will appoint judges that vote liberally in case outcomes, while presidents considered more "conservative" will appoint judges that support conservative case outcomes. The project examines cases from 1960 to 2001, with the individual judges' case votes serving as the dependent variable. An examination of presidential nomination strategies will augment this larger statistical analysis, using the appointments of President Jimmy Carter as a case study. This case study builds upon the premise that presidents seek different goals across different judicial nominations. The hypothesis is that when presidents select certain judges in order to foster an administration's policy goals, then the decisions those judges make in future cases should be inline with the appointing president's goals. However, those appointees selected for partisan reasons or to reward individual loyalty should be less likely to support long-term presidential policy preferences. Internal White House memos and other information from the Carter Presidential Library will be used to determine which nominees were selected based on their likelihood to support certain policy preferences. Then, I will examine the voting records of those judges. While other works have examined the Carter Administration's nominees, this project will allow more insight into the long-term influence of President Carter, the circuit merit-selection committees, and how an administration's nomination goals may influence future policy. As a further part of its broader impact, this analysis of the Carter Papers carries important heuristic implications. Aside from assessing the particularities of the Carter administration, this project will create a template from which other researchers can build upon. Examining the Carter Papers and categorizing each nominee as either a partisan, personal, or policy-based nominee and then examining those nominees' voting behaviors could be duplicated for other administrations at other presidential libraries.
