Scholarship@WashULaw
Document Type
Article
Language
English (en)
Publication Date
2011
Publication Title
Journal of Legal Studies
Abstract
The Supreme Court’s decision to invalidate a legislative enactment involves both the choice to strike as well as the choice whether to invalidate the statute on its face or as applied. Both choices implicate the possibility of counteraction by the legislature. In this paper, we evaluate the justices’ choices to invalidate a state or federal enactment on its face or as applied and find that the justices are responsive to congressional preferences concerning the substance of the legal challenge at both stages of judicial review. Other factors systematically affect the justices’ decisions as well, including the legal basis for the challenge, the statutory scope of the constitutional challenge, the president (through the solicitor general), and interest groups’ amicus filings. These findings suggest that the Court’s exercise of judicial review is significantly influenced by Congress and by other contextual, legal, and political factors, both as to the choice to strike as well as to the method of constitutional enforcement.
Keywords
Supreme Court, Judicial Review, Congressional Enactment, Constitutional Law
Publication Citation
Stefanie A. Lindquist & Pamela C. Corley, The Multiple-Stage Process of Judicial Review: Facial and As-Applied Constitutional Challenges to Legislation before the U.S. Supreme Court, 40 J. Legal Stud. 467 (2011)
Repository Citation
Lindquist, Stefanie A. and Corley, Pamela C., "The Multiple-Stage Process of Judicial Review: Facial and As-Applied Constitutional Challenges to Legislation before the U.S. Supreme Court" (2011). Scholarship@WashULaw. 883.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_scholarship/883
Included in
Constitutional Law Commons, Legal Studies Commons, Political Science Commons, Supreme Court of the United States Commons