| While scholars often focus on the outcome effects of Supreme Court decisions on state legislatures, a key element missing is how state legislators view their relationship with the Court through their everyday activities. The purpose of this study is to examine how the Illinois State Legislature is influenced by Supreme Court opinions and how it reconceptualized their relationship with the Court after Roe v. Wade from 1973-1975. A linguistic analysis was conducted using floor debate transcripts and the Illinois Abortion Law of 1975 to trace how legislators used Supreme Court opinion language and how this illuminates their relationship with the Court. The legislators challenge the Supreme Court and its authority through their debates, yet the language of the opinion and its underlying ideas become part of the subsequent discourse, and even more importantly, the logic of their legislation. The legislators ultimately comply with Roe despite continued outright rejection of it; hence, this study suggests that the Court has the power to influence subsequent legislation, if by no other means, by the very language of its decisions. |
