Measuring the Legitimacy of U.S. State Supreme Courts in the Post-Dobbs Era

• In Event: Understanding the Courts in a Post-Dobbs Era

Abstract

While scholars are pouring vast resources into studying the sociological legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court, the presidency, and even the U.S. Congress, not much attention has been devoted to the legitimacy of the state high courts. That is a crucial shortcoming, especially in the modern era when these courts are being called on to decide critical political issues within their states, including the legality of abortion restrictions and the results of state and federal elections. Without popular legitimacy (diffuse support), these institutions cannot be expected to be effective, to have their rulings—especially their unpopular decisions—accepted by their constituents. Relying upon a long-standing and widely accepted conceptualization of institutional legitimacy, we present in this paper empirical indicators of the legitimacy of each of the state supreme courts. Our effort is unprecedented in extant research on public attitudes toward state political institutions in that it relies upon data collected from a massive survey with representative samples of respondents in each of the 50 states (funded by “The Civic Health and Institutions Project, a 50 States Survey—CHIP50”). After providing micro-level evidence on the validity and reliability of our measure of diffuse support for each respondent’s state high court, we move to the macro-level for our analysis of causes and consequences of varying levels of institutional support, examining how the post-Dobbs landscape—in which state supreme courts have become increasingly called upon to rule on abortion cases—might connect with these courts’ public standings. Specifically, we analyze a quasi-experiment embedded in our survey design to determine whether abortion rulings by these institutions have the potential to undermine whatever legitimacy these institutions currently enjoy. Following findings about abortion politics and the legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court, we expect that going against public preferences in the state regarding abortion rights has serious consequences for the legitimacy of these state high courts.

Authors

• James L. Gibson, Washington University in St. Louis

• Michael J. Nelson, The Pennsylvania State University