CONGRESSIONAL CONTROL OF THE COURTS - A THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL-ANALYSIS OF EXPANSION OF THE FEDERAL JUDICIARY

Congress has many available tools to influence the federal judiciary. In this article, we consider Congress' ability to balance, or stack, t he courts through the creation of federal judgeships. While caseload p ressure often produces the need for more judgeships, we demonstrate th at political party alignment between Congress and the president often determines the timing of the judicial expansion. The net effect of exp anding during political alignment is to speed up changes in the politi cal balance of the judiciary in favor of the current Congress. We also examine the determinants of expansion size and show that both politic al alignment and caseload pressure influence Congress' decision regard ing how many judgeships to add.