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American Politics Research
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Departures From the Court

The Political Landscape and Institutional Constraints

Kjersten R. Nelson

University of Minnesota

Eve M. Ringsmuth

University of Minnesota

Previous findings on whether U.S. Supreme Court justices include strategic factors in their decisions to leave the Court have been mixed. We use ideological distance measures to capture the political landscape and retest the hypothesis that justices use strategic political considerations when making the decision to leave the Court. Using a Cox model of proportional hazards, we find that justices do take ideological distance from the Senate into account when making retirement decisions. Thus, the evidence indicates that justices engage in strategic behavior when contemplating retirement.

Key Words: U.S. Supreme Court • judicial retirement • strategic model • Cox model

American Politics Research, Vol. 37, No. 3, 486-507 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1532673X08326056
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