Shaping the Supreme Court's Federal Certiorari Docket

The size of the Supreme Court's discretionary docket has varied considerably over the last fifty years, and that variation has received more attention in both scholarly and journalistic circles in light of declines over the past fifteen years. To understand the sources of such variation, one must account for external and internal influences on the docket. This study shows that the Supreme Court's docket is not influenced by the ideological distance between the Supreme Court and the lower courts, nor is it driven by the internal division within the lower courts. The chief justice, as first among equals, also appears unable to affect the size of the docket. The justices' preferences appear to play the pivotal role in determining the size of the Court's docket. These findings add to the perception that justices are free of institutional constraints when making their decisions.