Court Curbing Lower State Courts in the United States

Abstract Court-curbing legislation seeks to constrain judicial independence and create a judicial environment that aligns with the preferences of the state legislature. Much of the existing court-curbing literature focuses on court curbing at the national level and state courts of last resort. However, most cases in the United States are decided by lower state courts. This article examines the motivations to curb lower state courts. Our results suggest that as legislative professionalization increases, the legislatures are more likely to introduce legislation that curbs state trial courts. Unlike existing literature on federal courts and state courts of last resort, the ideological distance from the bill sponsor and the state lower courts does not influence court-curbing activity. Our results hold when tested at both the bill and state levels.