The Tenth Justice? Consequences of Politicization in the Solicitor General's Office

Abstract

Previous scholarly accounts of the solicitor general's (S.G.) influence on the U.S. Supreme Court emphasize either the office's role as an ideological advocate for the executive branch or its reputation as a resource for credible legal information. Yet existing empirical analyses do not fully examine the potential that political advocacy of executive policy might undermine the S.G.’s influence. I propose a theory investigating the degree to which perceptual political bias jeopardizes the solicitor general's credibility as a trustworthy informational source. I argue that the Court should discount the S.G.’s arguments when the office exhibits excessive politicization. I test my assertion using individual-level data spanning the 1961–2003 Court terms. The data reveal that excessive politicization jeopardizes success on the merits, thereby demonstrating a systematic, negative impact on the office's legal influence.