STRATEGIC PASSING AND OPINION ASSIGNMENT ON THE BURGER COURT.

Previous research indicates that U.S. Supreme Court justices who are likely to control opinion assignments may withhold votes in an initial round of conference voting in circumstances that suggest that this behavior has strategic origins. Specifically, scholars have suggested that justices may pass in conference voting to gain control over the opinion assignment. This study extends this literature by developing a theory of the relationship between strategic passing in a conference vote and opinion assignment, which is assessed through a quantitative analysis of opinion assignments made by Chief Justice Burger. Specifically, we argue that justices selected to write opinions by those who have passed to strategically join a majority will be more ideologically peripheral compared to the majority coalition as a whole than justices who are assigned to write opinions following conference votes cast in order of seniority. Consistent with this theory, we find that Chief Justice Burger, indeed, made opinion assignments that diverged more strongly from the ideological composition of the Court's majority when he passed in conference compared with opinion assignments he made when he voted in order of seniority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]