Partisan views do not directly determine state supreme court school finance rulings.

Evidence

One might also expect that the justices’ political views would explain the different rulings on such a controversial policy issue. But it is not clear that these views exerted much direct influence on decisions. Take, for example, the Texas school finance case. The opinion of the court was written by Justice Oscar Mauzy, a Democrat who had formerly chaired the state senate’s education committee. One might easily attribute his vote for the reform of school finance to his background and political perspective. Yet, if political backgrounds and views directly determined votes, one would not have expected the other eight members of the Texas Supreme Court—five Democrats and three Republicans—to join Mauzy’s opinion. The New Jersey Supreme Court’s rulings in Robinson v, Cahill and in Abbott v. Burke also defy explanation in partisan terms. Although the justices included both Democrats and Republicans, both decisions were unanimous. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 3304

Categorization

• XREF: Directly complicates the ch124/ch125 attitudinal-model emphasis that party affiliation predicts judging — here a bipartisan unanimous outcome resists that claim. — connects to: Variation in judges’ role conceptions, not state law, explains divergent school finance rulings. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 3302; Justices who favor an outcome personally may still suppress those views on role-conception grounds. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1288; Political background and party affiliation do not directly explain state judges’ rulings. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1698