THE QUIXOTIC SEARCH FOR CONSENSUS ON THE US SUPREME-COURT - A CROSS-JUDICIAL EMPIRICAL-ANALYSIS OF THE REHNQUIST-COURT JUSTICES

In this first systematic and extensive application of cross-judicial m ethodology, we examine the members of the Rehnquist Court (1986-94 ter ms) with prior appellate court experience to discern any correlation w ith their Supreme Court behavior in terms of nonconsensual opinion wri ting and voting. We find that they become less consensual as justices than they were as judges in the lower court. Importantly, this finding holds after controlling for such institutional differences between th e two court levels as size, ideology case types, stare decisis, and no rms. Consistent with the neoinstitutional perspective, we surmise that this behavior change is due to the modem Supreme Court being unique, a court on which the members feel it is desirable, necessary, and poss ible to express policy disagreements with the majority via separate op inions and votes.