The Attitudinal Model: Warren, Rehnquist, And Roberts Court

According to the attitudinal model, Justices cannot be constrained by Congress nor the Executive branch, this constraint caused proponents to resist opposing results by those testing the rational choice to determine if the Justices act strategically in predicting congressional responses (Segal & Spaeth, 2002). “Scholars typically gravitate toward one of two opposing views about how justices make their decisions. On one side, attitudinalists argue that “institutional features designed to secure judicial independence ... ensure that the Justices can give their ideological preferences ‘free play’ and ‘base their decisions solely upon personal policy preferences (Rohde and Spaeth 1976, 72).” The attitudinal perception supports the idea that legal boundaries which give way to accurate interpretations of the law, which are believed to be useless in the Court’s decisions (Baum, 1994). The following graphs below will demonstrate how the Warren, Rehnquist, and Roberts Court have allowed ideological
According to the figure 1 in 1953, which marks the beginning of Chief Justice Warren tenure, his court appeared to be neither conservative or liberal. However, during his first five years, his court decided cases liberally; and remained liberal for the most part throughout his tenure. Moving to the observation of the Rehnquist Court we can gather that prior to his tenure as Chief Justice he decided case conservatively a method that seems to change a few years before his appointment as Chief Justice. Though there is a decline in his conservative decision he still remained a conservative Justice, rarely, ruling on the liberal side of the judicial spectrum. John Roberts, on the other hand, has completely switched sides since the passing of Justice Scalia. Ruling on the conservative side, the decline is observed around