Judicial Review and Coordinate Construction of the Constitution

Theory: A Congress-centered model of coordinate construction of the Constitution is proposed to predict when legislation, that would reverse a decision of the Supreme Court, is brought to a vote in Congress. Hypotheses: Decision reversal of Supreme Court cases striking down law as unconstitutional are a function of federal power concerns, presidential position, the type of law struck down, public opinion, and interest group pressure. Methods: A two-stage model suggested by Achen (1987) for modeling two interrelated, dichotomous outcomes is used. Results: We find that Congress often does reverse Supreme Court rulings and that public opinion, the position of the president, federal power concerns, and the type of law struck down have the greatest effect on the likelihood that reversal legislation will come to a vote in Congress and will be passed.