Judicial appointments extend a party’s influence beyond its control of elected branches.
Evidence
Jack Balkin and Sanford Levinson generalize from examples like this to emphasize the importance to American political and constitutional development of what they call “partisan entrenchment”: the strategic appointment of politically and ideologically aligned judges and Justices whose tenures will outlast party control over the political branches of government. Balkin and Levinson emphasize that presidents and parties are motivated to engage in partisan entrenchment not just to “secure a bench likely to assist the President with his current political agenda” but also “to secure future influence even when the party loses power.” From this perspective, federal judges and Justices are simply “temporally extended representatives of particular parties,” or representatives of “a temporally extended majority,” and “hence, of popular understandings about public policy and the Constitution.” — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 341
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines ‘partisan entrenchment’ — a core mechanism-concept directly relevant to the reader’s question about how rationalizing ideologies become durable once embedded in institutions.
- XREF: Directly ties to the reader’s own theorizing about ideology stickiness through institutional embedding — judicial lifetime tenure as the archetypal ‘sticky’ mechanism. — connects to: Congress weaponizes new judgeship creation to favor the appointing president’s party — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 462; Presidents can use lower court appointments to advance political agendas — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 477; Judicial appointments are a priority concern of modern presidents. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 502 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Judicial appointments extend presidential influence far beyond a term
#expands(0.95) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 511 - Judges act as temporally extended representatives of their appointing party.
#expands(0.95)