The Discuss List and Agenda-Setting on the Supreme Court

Abstract:     
The literature on Supreme Court agenda-setting has focused almost exclusively on the justices' votes and the Court's decision on certiorari. Yet, the certiorari vote is only one component of the agenda-setting process on the Supreme Court. There is a critical, prior step in the process: justices have a mechanism for winnowing the thousands of cert petitions filed with the Court to a relative handful that they consider at conference. This mechanism is the discuss list. We examine explanations for justices' participation in forming the Court's discuss list. Specifically, we use data derived from the papers of former Justice Harry A. Blackmun, exploring the number of cases that each justice adds to the discuss list for every conference from the 1985 term to the 1993 term.

Keywords: Discuss List, Certiorari, Agenda Setting

Working Paper Series