Logrolling in the Supreme Court

While studies have considered the presence and impact of logrolling (vote trading) on legislative actors, little work has questioned the possibility of judicial logrolling among Supreme Court Justices. Supreme Court Justices are usually assumed to be free from constituencies and political party pressures. This assumption is derived from life-long appointments that do not require the endorsement of reelection. However, public choice would predict the presence of logrolling in cases where intense differences in preferences exist among justices. We only expect to see logrolling when vote trading has the potential to change voting outcomes. Thus, to study the probability of logrolling plurality, majority, and unanimous decisions must all be considered. Essentially, I will be altering previous models of legislative logrolling in accordance with the conditions of the Supreme Court to describe possible logrolling scenarios. This study does not aim to prove the existence of logrolling among Supreme Court Justices, only that it is a possibility.