[EL] question on US Supreme Court and election law cases

[Reuben, Richard C.]

I don't know of any studies. But I did cover the court as a reporter for many years before going into teaching, and my experience is that the split rule applies to cases the court feels it has to take to settle the law (although even then it often lets splits languish for years). Then there are the cases the court wants to take because it's interested in the issue. This is where I see the election law cases fitting in.

Richard.

Richard C. Reuben
James Lewis Parks Professor of Law
University of Missouri School of Law
Hulston Hall
Columbia, MO   65211
Phone: 573-884-5204
Fax: 573-882-3343
Email: ReubenR at missouri.edu<mailto:ReubenR at missouri.edu>
Internet: law.missouri.edu/reuben
Personal: richardreuben.com




From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Richard Winger
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2011 8:25 AM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: [EL] question on US Supreme Court and election law cases

Although in general, the US Supreme Court is more inclined to grant cert when there is a split in circuits, I have been noticing that that generality doesn't seem to be very true for election law cases.

Is anyone aware of any article or study on the extent to which US Supreme Court grants of cert are or are not very much linked to circuit splits?

If there is no study, I am inclined to do my own study.  I remember once someone on this list pointed to a list of all election law cases that have ever had full decisions from the US Supreme Court.  But I can't remember where that list is, or who has it.  I would only be interested in the part of the list of all election law cases that got full decisions from the US Supreme Court for the period 1976 to the present, because before 1976 election law cases involving the constitutionality of state laws didn't generally go to US Courts of Appeals.  Thank you very much.

Richard Winger
415-922-9779
PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147


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