American Indian Interests and Supreme Court Agenda Setting

Abstract

A recent development in the judicial behavior literature on Supreme Court agenda setting is the examination of case selection within particular areas of the law. To that end, this study examines the Supreme Court's agenda-building process regarding American Indian Interests as a petitioning litigant during the 1969-1992 October terms. Using a multivariate logistic regression model, the findings indicate that judicial attitudes as manifested by the attitudinal model, the direct and third party briefs filed by the Solicitor General's office for and against American Indian interests, and the presence of a sovereignty issue were influential explanatory variables in the Supreme Court's case selection process. Contrary to the expectations of this study, however, the petitioning party alleging lower court conflict, dissension, and the number of amici curiae briefs filed in support of, and in opposition to, American Indian interests were not important predictors.