Diversifying the
Federal Bench: Presidential Patterns
Rorie
L. Spill-Solberg and Kathleen A. Bratton
In this study of
all federal district court appointments from 1977 through 2004, we examine a
variety of possible influences on the selection of women and minorities to the
federal bench. We find that women
and minorities are more likely to be appointed to relatively large courts and to
courts that have relatively few female or minority judges.
The pool of eligible candidates also has a substantial and significant
influence on the likelihood that a minority judge will be appointed.
We find that political factors such as state ideology or the partisan
composition of the U.S Senate delegation from the state have little influence.
We conclude that presidents take race and gender into consideration when
making judicial appointments and are particularly interested in diversifying
relatively homogeneous courts; moreover, large courts may offer an opportunity
to diversify with relatively few trade-offs in representation of other groups or
interests.
ToC
JSJ
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