Bush v. Gore and voting pattern of conservative justices

[Frank Cross]

Well, that's just two opinions.  Baum looked at the overall pattern of 
voting.  His hypothesis was that
the chattering classes were liberal and hence would produce more liberal 
votes.  He theorized that Dems were already liberal and would be unaffected 
and that Pubs from DC were already inoculated and would be unaffected but 
that Pubs from outside the capital could fall prey to the chattering 
classes.  If so, their opinions would become steadily more liberal as time 
passed and they were influenced.  This applied to Souter, Blackmun, and 
Stewart but was not true of Kennedy.  Of course, Baum is also not privy to 
the reasons for this effect but it is interesting.

My favorite effect, though, is Scalia becoming dramatically more 
conservative over the time period studied.  I suspect this may be a "piss 
off the chattering classes" effect.


At 06:42 PM 8/13/2006, Earl Maltz wrote:
>Obviously, I am not privy to Justice Kennedy's private thoughts, and his 
>conscious (or subconscious) motivations are difficult to judge because he 
>seems to be so clearly in over his head when he tries to discuss 
>constitutional law coherently.  But to me, his opinions in Romer and 
>Lawrence, together, are exhibit A.  While I think that both are wrongly 
>decided, I can imagine the construction of majority opinions that 
>resembled legal reasoning (at least in Lawrence; Romer is impossible so 
>long as one accepted the authoritativeness of Bowers).  But in both cases, 
>Kennedy's opinions are nothing more than piles of politically correct 
>platitudes.
>
>At 06:09 PM 8/13/2006 -0500, Frank Cross wrote:
>
>>I don't see any such effect, and this seems unfair to Kennedy.  I 
>>recommend Lawrence Baum's new book, Judges and Their Audiences.  He 
>>examines the "chattering class" effect.  While it is difficult to test, 
>>he finds an effect for some justices but not really for Kennedy.
>>
>>
>>At 04:49 PM 8/13/2006, Earl Maltz wrote:
>>>At a conference last year, I was surprised to hear a well-known liberal 
>>>constitutional scholar suggest that the voting pattern of the 
>>>conservative justices in the past five years is in part a reaction to 
>>>the criticism of Bush v. Gore by liberal constitutional scholars and the 
>>>mainstream media.  Now I see that David Cole is publishing an article 
>>>making the same argument.  I was wondering if there are members of this 
>>>list who share that view, and, if so, what evidence they can cite in 
>>>support of that conclusion.
>>>
>>>I am willing to believe that the "jurisprudence" (if you can call it 
>>>that) of Justice Kennedy in part reflects a desire to gain the 
>>>acceptance and respect of the chattering classes.  However, Cole is 
>>>arguing that the same impulse is shared by the conservative justices on 
>>>the Court more generally.
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>To post, send message to Conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
>>>To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see 
>>>http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/conlawprof
>>>
>>>Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as 
>>>private.  Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are 
>>>posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly 
>>>or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
>>
>>**********************************************************
>>
>>Frank Cross
>>McCombs School of Business
>>The University of Texas at Austin
>>1 University Station B6000
>>Austin, TX 78712-1178
>
>**********************************************************
>
>Frank Cross
>McCombs School of Business
>The University of Texas at Austin
>1 University Station B6000
>Austin, TX 78712-1178