Targeting the Court with Presidential Appeals

Lacking the power to enforce its decisions, the Supreme Court must rely on other actors to ensure that its dictates are carried out. One such actor is the president, who can support or oppose the Court’s decisions in his public speeches in an effort to promote or hinder their implementation. Using an original dataset, we investigate the tone of presidential speeches about Supreme Court cases to understand why sitting presidents target Supreme Court decisions in their public rhetoric. We find that presidents discuss cases based primarily on their ideological (dis)agreement with the decision, whether the decision declared a law unconstitutional, and whether the case was decided by a minimum winning coalition. These results inform our understanding of presidential speechmaking, executive-judicial relations, and the ways in which presidents implement legal decisions.