Support for the Supreme Court as a National Policymaker

The most frequent explanations for the endurance of the Supreme Court's policies and of its power as a national policymaker assume public reverence for the Court, widespread support for it as an institution, or broad‐based agreement with its policies. Public opinion studies refute most of these assumptions. Our research confirms those studies and shows, in addition, that the Court cannot claim strong support among occasional political activists. It does, however, have a strong constituency among liberal activists and liberal position‐holders. We hypothesize, therefore, that the Court's endurance as a national policymaker is explained by special support from one wing of the dominant party coalition that, because of its strategic location in the complex national policy process, is able to obstruct broadly‐based attacks on the Court's authority and policy. Such attacks gain force, however, when critical elections alter the dominant party coalition and therefore weaken the hold of the Court's ideological allies. Yet even then—or at least so far—the Court and its policies have prevailed against various court curbing efforts.