[EL] which branch of the federal government is most polarized?

[Gaddie, Ronald K.]

The Congress can affirmatively engage any issue. The court only engages those issues that are brought to it, that it chooses to take up.

But the SCOTUS provides us something valuable. They provide us with rationale. The arguments are detailed, and we directly see them engaging each other. And we can ascertain the intensity of preference and division.

I think our Court is deeply polarized. However, I think the court can be many Courts in a given day. On the polarizing issues, we see Kennedy making the call -- unless the chief comes along in order to control the opinion.  On some issues, we see cross-cutting cleavages.

As I observed to someone the other day:"It seems that Justice Roberts was an idiot on Thursday and a genius on Friday. Or, did I get that backwards?" That's the Supreme Court. But inevitably, on most given days, we live in Anthony Kennedy's head.

________________________________
Ronald Keith Gaddie, Ph.D.
President's Associates Presidential Professor
Chair, Department of Political Science<http://psc.ou.edu>
Associate Director, Center for Intelligence & National Security<http://cins.ouhsc.edu>
The University of Oklahoma
p: 405.325.2061  | e: rkgaddie at ou.edu<mailto:rkgaddie at ou.edu>  | t: @GaddieWindage<https://twitter.com/gaddiewindage>
________________________________
From: Mark Rush [markrush7983 at gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2015 11:38 AM
To: Gaddie, Ronald K.
Cc: Thomas J. Cares; Richard Winger; Election Law
Subject: Re: [EL] which branch of the federal government is most polarized?

Strange tho.  The NYT recently said that the Roberts court is increasingly liberal.  How do your thoughts square with the data in that story ?

Cheers

Sent from my iPhone. Apologies for brevity and typos.


On Jun 30, 2015, at 12:23 AM, Gaddie, Ronald K. <rkgaddie at ou.edu<mailto:rkgaddie at ou.edu>> wrote:

If you wish to measure polarization within an institution, you don't do it by using the two anchors of the spread at the outside. Rather, you should look to the space or gap at the center between the predominant clusters of players.

The US House is the most polarized institution.

________________________________
Ronald Keith Gaddie, Ph.D.
President's Associates Presidential Professor
Chair, Department of Political Science<http://psc.ou.edu>
Associate Director, Center for Intelligence & National Security<http://cins.ouhsc.edu>
The University of Oklahoma
p: 405.325.2061  | e: rkgaddie at ou.edu<mailto:rkgaddie at ou.edu>  | t: @GaddieWindage<https://twitter.com/gaddiewindage>
________________________________
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> [law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu>] on behalf of Thomas J. Cares [Tom at TomCares.com<mailto:Tom at TomCares.com>]
Sent: Monday, June 29, 2015 9:16 PM
To: Richard Winger
Cc: Election Law
Subject: Re: [EL] which branch of the federal government is most polarized?

I see more distance between Bernie Sanders and James Inhoffe than Scalia and Sotomayor.

Or if you're using occasional collaboration as the standard, the "liberals" do seem to win a decent number of the 5-4s

Thomas Cares

On Monday, June 29, 2015, Richard Winger <richardwinger at yahoo.com<mailto:richardwinger at yahoo.com>> wrote:
I would say, given that Congress and President Obama just worked together on the international trade deal, that Congress is no longer the most polarized branch of the federal government.  The US Supreme Court is the most polarized.

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


--

_______________________________________________
Law-election mailing list
Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>
http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20150630/f92d66e9/attachment.html>