Alex Badas’s research while affiliated with University of Houston and other places

Public opinion about the U.S. Supreme Court is heavily influenced by whether people perceive that the Court aligns with them ideologically. However, most Americans do not follow the Court closely enough to make informed inferences about their proximity to the Court. To explain this paradox, we theorize that when Americans perceive that they share a salient identity with the Supreme Court Justices, they attribute their own ideological orientation to the Court. Focusing on evangelical Christians, we find strong evidence for this theory. Survey analysis reveals that when evangelicals perceive that a majority of the Justices are evangelical Christians, they report less ideological distance from the Court, even though this does not affect their objective distance from the Court. To clarify the causal direction of this relationship, we conduct a conjoint experiment—showing that when evangelicals evaluate hypothetical nominees to the Court, they report that evangelical nominees are closer to them ideologically. By showing that the Court’s social imagery influences subjective ideological distance judgments, we help explain both the disconnect between subjective and objective proximity and the continued significance of subjective proximity judgments.

Attention to ideological polarization in the Circuit Courts of Appeals has surged in recent years. However, no valid cross-circuit cardinal measure of polarization has been established. The lack of a valid cross-circuit measure of polarization has limited scholar’s ability to evaluate broad trends in judicial polarization and address how ideological polarization influences judicial decision-making. To address this, I develop a new measure of ideological polarization for each of the Circuit Courts of Appeals between 1953 and 2022 using the polarization framework established by Esteban and Ray (1994). I then theorize that in order to uphold the norms of collegiality, more polarized courts are likely to take strategic actions to avoid breaking consensus. I show that polarized courts deliberate longer before releasing opinions, are less likely to give cases with a full hearing, and are less likely to publish justified and signed opinions. These results have implications for the efficiency, efficacy, and authority of the Circuit Courts of Appeals.

Federal law clerks play a vital role in the development and implementation of the law. Yet, women remain underrepresented in these positions. We suggest that one reason for this underrepresentation may be differences in hiring practices among judges in the federal judiciary. Specifically, we hypothesize that male judges and conservative judges may be less likely to hire female law clerks than female judges and liberal judges for two reasons. First, gendered attitudes held by judges may make some judges prone to hire women and/or others more resistant to these hires. Second, due to ideological asymmetries between the law clerk pool and judges in the federal judiciary, conservative judges and male judges may be less likely to hire women law clerks. Using data on clerks hired in the federal judiciary between 1995 and 2005, we find support for both mechanisms.

Relying on theories positing general resentment of the rich, we argue that people who believe there are a greater number of Justices who are millionaires will have more negative attitudes towards the Court than those who believe there are fewer millionaires on the Court. Analyzing the results of a nationally representative survey, we find that individuals who believe a larger number of the Justices are millionaires are more likely to believe the Court gives special rights to the wealthy and are overall less likely to view the Court as legitimate. We supplement these results with a survey experiment, demonstrating that individuals believe the Court will become less fair if a millionaire nominee is confirmed to be a Justice and that individuals are less likely to support a millionaire nominee compared to nominees with a lower net worth. Our results have implications for perceptions of bias within the judiciary, the selection of judicial nominees, and how attitudes about the wealthy can influence attitudes towards institutions.

Extant research reveals that Americans hold politically consequential beliefs about the demographic composition of political groups and organizations—even when these beliefs are at odds with objective reality. In this article, we investigate the social imagery of the U.S. Supreme Court, with particular attention to beliefs about the Supreme Court Justices’ religious identities. In survey analysis, we find that evangelicals who believe there are more evangelical Christians on the Court grant the Court more legitimacy compared to non-evangelicals. Further, when evangelical Christians believe there are more atheists on the Court, they view the Court less legitimately than non-evangelicals. To rule out the potential of endogeneity, we conduct a conjoint experiment which demonstrates that evangelicals believe evangelical judges will increase the fairness of the Court and are more likely to support evangelical nominees compared to the average nominee. Likewise, they tend to believe out-group judges will harm the fairness of the Court and are less likely to support out-group judges. Our results have implications for diversity on the Court and how non-ideological factors can affect the Court’s legitimacy.

Law clerks hold immense responsibilities and exert influence over the judges they work with. However, women remain underrepresented in these positions. We argue that one reason for this underrepresentation is that – like potential political candidates – female law students may have lower levels of ambition compared to men. Using a survey of student editors at thirty-three top law reviews, we find that there is a gender gap in ambition for clerkships with the Supreme Court and Federal Courts of Appeal. Examining potential sources of this difference, we find that while women view themselves to be just as qualified for these positions as men, men are more willing to apply with lower feelings of qualification. Likewise, while women and men report similar levels of encouragement, more encouragement is required before women express ambition to hold these posts. The findings presented here have implications for research on judicial politics, political ambition, and women’s representation.

The Supreme Court’s increased use of the “shadow docket” and the salience of the issues handled on the shadow docket have raised normative concerns over its use. Critics argue that the Supreme Court should not make law without following established procedures of a full briefing, oral arguments, and deliberation. Those seeking to defend the Court point out that decisions made on the shadow docket do not create binding precedent and only resolve the issue before the Court. We examine whether shadow docket decisions are used as precedent by lower courts. We come to two general conclusions. First, shadow docket cases are invoked as precedent much less frequently than merits docket cases. Second, shadow docket cases receive more engagement from the lower courts when the Supreme Court provides a justification for its shadow docket decision and when the Supreme Court grants relief and thereby changes the status quo. Our results help evaluate and provide responses to the normative criticisms of the Court’s reliance on the shadow docket to create law.

The news media acts as a “watchdog” over political institutions by holding them accountable for their actions through critical commentary. Being that the Supreme Court rarely interacts directly with the public, the news media is the primary mechanism through which individuals become aware of the Supreme Court’s actions and decisions. Thus, for the Supreme Court, the news media’s role as a “watchdog” takes greater meaning than it does for institutions that often speak directly to the public. Considering this, along with the Supreme Court’s use of strategic presentation, we argue that news media attention to particular cases will influence the extent to which the Supreme Court deliberates on argued cases. We find support for our hypothesis in four contexts. First, cases with more news media attention take longer to produce a published opinion. Second, cases with greater media attention are more likely to be reargued. Third, cases with more news media attention produce a higher number of draft opinions before being published. Fourth, cases with more news media attention produce opinions with a greater share of cognitive mechanisms included in them. Our results have implications for the Justice’s use of strategic behavior and the potential constraints faced by the Court in its decision-making.