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Is the Supreme Court’s Legitimacy Vulnerable to Intense Appointment Politics? Democrats’ Changed Views Around Justice Ginsburg’s Death

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 January 2023

David Glick
David Glick*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
*
Email: dmglick@bu.edu
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Abstract

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death near the end of the Trump presidency set off a fight in which Republicans moved to rapidly replace her over Democrats’ objections. I use a survey that was in the field at the time to assess whether this period affected the Court’s legitimacy. I find that Democrats who responded in the days just after Justice Ginsburg’s death saw the Court as less legitimate than those who responded shortly before it. These findings connect to broader questions about the sources of Court legitimacy, the mechanisms through which it changes, and the impact of contestation over appointments.

Keywords

Supreme CourtLegitimacyParty CuesAppointmentsSenate
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Law and Courts , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , April 2023 , pp. 104 - 115
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Law and Courts Organized Section of the American Political Science Association

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