Congressional Control of the Courts: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Expansion of the Federal Judiciary

Authors

John M. de Figueiredo, Duke Law SchoolFollow
Emerson H. Tiller

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1996

Keywords

Congress, judicial expansion, federal judiciary, empirical research

Abstract

Congress has many available tools to influence the federal judiciary. In this article, we consider Congress' ability to balance, or stack, the courts through the creation of federal judgeships. While caseload pressure often produces the need for more judgeships, we demonstrate that political party alignment between Congress and the president often determines the timing of the judicial expansion. The net effect of expanding during political alignment is to speed up changes in the political balance of the judiciary in favor of the current Congress. We also examine the determinants of expansion size and show that both political alignment and caseload pressure influence Congress' decision regarding how many judgeships to add.

Citation

John M. de Figueiredo & Emerson H. Tiller, Congressional Control of the Courts: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Expansion of the Federal Judiciary, 39 Journal of Law and Economics 435-462 (1996)