Presidential bureaucratic power and supreme court justice voting

Presidency scholars suggest that the federal bureaucracy has become "presid entialized" and that the federal agencies have become a primary tool for pr esidential policy implementation. However, in its review of federal agency litigation, the Supreme Court stands as an important monitor of executive b ureaucratic action. Here, the conditions under which Supreme Court justices choose to facilitate executive bureaucratic action are assessed. This stud y tests the proposition that Supreme Court justices' voting decisions to su pport the president's bureaucratic agents are conditioned upon theoreticall y interesting extra-legal factors. Logistic regression analysis was conduct ed on justices' votes from Supreme Court cases involving cabinet and indepe ndent agencies during the years 1953-1995. The results indicate that Suprem e Court justices' voting decisions to favorably review bureaucratic actions are influenced by extra-legal factors including attitudinal, political, an d external concerns.