Fuzzy standards, institutional constraints, and judicial attitudes: The politics of state supreme court decision-making in educational finance reform litigation

Between 1970 and 2000, state supreme courts in 36 states reviewed, and in 19 instances struck down, their states' school funding schemes pursuant to charges that the state had not provided an equitable or adequate distribution of educational resources to schoolchildren. Although there is a body of legal literature that discusses the legal theories in these cases and a growing literature studies the effects of judicial intervention, little is known about why state supreme courts choose to intervene in educational finance policy.; This thesis addresses the question of why some state supreme courts overturn their states' educational finance systems, while others uphold their finance systems. The thesis hypothesizes that judicial ideologies, i.e., the preference for “liberal” as opposed to “conservative” policy, and attitudes toward the role of the judiciary, i.e., an “activist” as opposed to a “restraintist” role orientation, play an enhanced role in judicial decision-making in educational finance reform cases. Moreover, inter-institutional constraints, i.e., perceived harmony or conflict with the political branches, shape courts' decisions in such cases.; A twofold methodology is employed in this thesis. First, the thesis isolates the legal influences on judicial decision-making by examining the legal history of educational finance reform cases and concludes that the jurisprudence of these cases is not so much concerned with developing a clear and operational constitutional test for educational equity or adequacy. Rather, courts have created “fuzzy” legal standards that permit courts to intervene in finance policy, yet recognize the constraints and the limited role courts play in state policy.; Second, the thesis isolates the “extra-legal” factors that influence judicial decision-making by comparing litigations in Ohio and Wisconsin and focusing on the environmental influences as well as the attitudes of the justices on the states' high courts. The thesis constructs an attitudinal profile of each of the supreme courts and their justices by analyzing their decision-making in significant cases and their systematic behavior in garden-variety cases. The data from the two cases support the hypotheses that a more liberal and activist judiciary is more likely to find unconstitutional the state's educational finance policy.