Michael P Fix
Biographic Data
| ID | 4168736 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael P Fix |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael P |
| FAMILY NAME | Fix |
| SIGNATURE | FIX M P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Georgia State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0466-2207 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 61 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Examining the Interconnectedness of State High Court Twitter
Judges are not the first political officials that come to mind when one considers the role of social media in modern politics. Following in the wake of some prominent judicial personalities adopting Twitter, however, a growing number of state high court judges have adopted and established more public personas on the platform. Judges use Twitter in substantively different ways than traditional elected officials (Curry and Fix 2019); however, littl…
Rigid rules and slippery standards
Objective This research develops a new theoretical framework that explains how the U.S. Supreme Court's decision between a rigid rule and a flexible standard influences compliance with the decisions of state high courts over time. Methods To assess the effects of doctrinal rules and standards on state court compliance, we apply our theoretical framework to an examination of state court responses to Miller v. California (1973) and Atkins v. Virgin…
The Effect of Opinion Readability on the Impact of U.S. Supreme Court Precedents in State High Courts
Objective This article examines whether more readable U.S. Supreme Court opinions are cited with greater frequency in state courts of last resort. Methods We use random slope, random intercept multilevel models to analyze 30 years of state high court citations to U.S. Supreme Court majority opinions issued during the 1987–2006 terms. Results Our analysis reveals that opinion readability exerts a strong substantive impact on citation rates. This e…
Giving the Straw Man a Brain
May it please the twitterverse
This article examines the extent to which Twitter has been adopted by judges on state supreme courts, and how these judges use the platform. While social media usage by other politicians has been examined in a variety of contexts, judges have been universally ignored. We find that elected judges are more likely to use Twitter, primarily to engage with the public. Additionally, while they do not engage with the public like traditional politicians,…
Examining the Policy Learning Dynamics of Atypical Policies with an Application to State Preemption of Local Dog Laws
Most of the literature on policy diffusion focuses on palpable issues such as economic or morality policies. As such, we know little about the mechanisms of diffusion for preemption of atypical policies such as animal regulations that lack a clear economic or ideological motivation. In this article, we propose and test a theory of conditional policy learning to explain the diffusion of atypical policies. We posit that a type of policy learning is…
The Best of Times and the Worst of Times
For better or for worse, presidents receive much of the credit and much of the blame for their legislative success in Congress. Indeed, much has been written about the correlates of presidential success in Congress. In this article, we test the proposition that presidential success in Congress is mainly a function of context and the context of presidential interactions with Congress has changed over the past 50 years. Specifically, it is both the…
Policy Learning and the Diffusion of Stand‐Your‐Ground Laws
Stand‐Your‐Ground (SYG) laws have recently received increased attention due to the controversial verdict in the 2013 George Zimmerman trial. At the time of the trial, 22 states had adopted SYG laws, with Florida adopting the first SYG law only a few years earlier. This article explores how policy learning contributed to the diffusion of these laws among U.S. states. It is found that learning exhibits atypical and complex patterns of diffusion not…
The Influence of Precedent on State Supreme Courts
Studies of policy making by courts need to examine the actual policy adopted in the majority opinion rather than studying votes. The authors examine the responsiveness of state supreme courts to precedents announced by the US Supreme Court by examining their treatment of the precedents in their opinions, testing the utility of precedent vitality versus the impact of ideological preferences. They find that the vitality of Supreme Court precedent i…
State Supreme Courts and the Effects of Statutory Constraint
Do state supreme court judges render decisions according to their ideological preferences, or are they constrained by the language of state statutes? Using data from the Judge-Level State Supreme Court Database, the authors analyze the votes of individual judges from 1995 to 1998 to determine whether their behavior is constrained by legislation. The results indicate that more detailed language (resulting in statutes with higher word counts) signi…
Judicial Deference and National Security
This article briefly examines the history of federal court adjudication of national security issues to determine how judges have employed specific legal rationales for deciding not to decide in order to avoid confrontation with the executive branch. By focusing on the historical development of these legal strategies, we demonstrate that while judges have been generally deferential to the executive on national security issues, this deference incre…
Policy Learning and the Diffusion of Stand‐Your‐Ground Laws
Stand‐Your‐Ground (SYG) laws have recently received increased attention due to the controversial verdict in the 2013 George Zimmerman trial. At the time of the trial, 22 states had adopted SYG laws, with Florida adopting the first SYG law only a few years earlier. This article explores how policy learning contributed to the diffusion of these laws among U.S. states. It is found that learning exhibits atypical and complex patterns of diffusion not…
State Supreme Courts and the Effects of Statutory Constraint
Do state supreme court judges render decisions according to their ideological preferences, or are they constrained by the language of state statutes? Using data from the Judge-Level State Supreme Court Database, the authors analyze the votes of individual judges from 1995 to 1998 to determine whether their behavior is constrained by legislation. The results indicate that more detailed language (resulting in statutes with higher word counts) signi…
The Influence of Precedent on State Supreme Courts
Studies of policy making by courts need to examine the actual policy adopted in the majority opinion rather than studying votes. The authors examine the responsiveness of state supreme courts to precedents announced by the US Supreme Court by examining their treatment of the precedents in their opinions, testing the utility of precedent vitality versus the impact of ideological preferences. They find that the vitality of Supreme Court precedent i…
The Best of Times and the Worst of Times
For better or for worse, presidents receive much of the credit and much of the blame for their legislative success in Congress. Indeed, much has been written about the correlates of presidential success in Congress. In this article, we test the proposition that presidential success in Congress is mainly a function of context and the context of presidential interactions with Congress has changed over the past 50 years. Specifically, it is both the…
May it please the twitterverse
This article examines the extent to which Twitter has been adopted by judges on state supreme courts, and how these judges use the platform. While social media usage by other politicians has been examined in a variety of contexts, judges have been universally ignored. We find that elected judges are more likely to use Twitter, primarily to engage with the public. Additionally, while they do not engage with the public like traditional politicians,…
The Effect of Opinion Readability on the Impact of U.S. Supreme Court Precedents in State High Courts
Objective This article examines whether more readable U.S. Supreme Court opinions are cited with greater frequency in state courts of last resort. Methods We use random slope, random intercept multilevel models to analyze 30 years of state high court citations to U.S. Supreme Court majority opinions issued during the 1987–2006 terms. Results Our analysis reveals that opinion readability exerts a strong substantive impact on citation rates. This e…
Examining the Interconnectedness of State High Court Twitter
Judges are not the first political officials that come to mind when one considers the role of social media in modern politics. Following in the wake of some prominent judicial personalities adopting Twitter, however, a growing number of state high court judges have adopted and established more public personas on the platform. Judges use Twitter in substantively different ways than traditional elected officials (Curry and Fix 2019); however, littl…
Rigid rules and slippery standards
Objective This research develops a new theoretical framework that explains how the U.S. Supreme Court's decision between a rigid rule and a flexible standard influences compliance with the decisions of state high courts over time. Methods To assess the effects of doctrinal rules and standards on state court compliance, we apply our theoretical framework to an examination of state court responses to Miller v. California (1973) and Atkins v. Virgin…
Judicial Deference and National Security
This article briefly examines the history of federal court adjudication of national security issues to determine how judges have employed specific legal rationales for deciding not to decide in order to avoid confrontation with the executive branch. By focusing on the historical development of these legal strategies, we demonstrate that while judges have been generally deferential to the executive on national security issues, this deference incre…
State Supreme Courts and the Effects of Statutory Constraint
Do state supreme court judges render decisions according to their ideological preferences, or are they constrained by the language of state statutes? Using data from the Judge-Level State Supreme Court Database, the authors analyze the votes of individual judges from 1995 to 1998 to determine whether their behavior is constrained by legislation. The results indicate that more detailed language (resulting in statutes with higher word counts) signi…
The Influence of Precedent on State Supreme Courts
Studies of policy making by courts need to examine the actual policy adopted in the majority opinion rather than studying votes. The authors examine the responsiveness of state supreme courts to precedents announced by the US Supreme Court by examining their treatment of the precedents in their opinions, testing the utility of precedent vitality versus the impact of ideological preferences. They find that the vitality of Supreme Court precedent i…
Policy Learning and the Diffusion of Stand‐Your‐Ground Laws
Stand‐Your‐Ground (SYG) laws have recently received increased attention due to the controversial verdict in the 2013 George Zimmerman trial. At the time of the trial, 22 states had adopted SYG laws, with Florida adopting the first SYG law only a few years earlier. This article explores how policy learning contributed to the diffusion of these laws among U.S. states. It is found that learning exhibits atypical and complex patterns of diffusion not…
The Best of Times and the Worst of Times
For better or for worse, presidents receive much of the credit and much of the blame for their legislative success in Congress. Indeed, much has been written about the correlates of presidential success in Congress. In this article, we test the proposition that presidential success in Congress is mainly a function of context and the context of presidential interactions with Congress has changed over the past 50 years. Specifically, it is both the…
Examining the Policy Learning Dynamics of Atypical Policies with an Application to State Preemption of Local Dog Laws
Most of the literature on policy diffusion focuses on palpable issues such as economic or morality policies. As such, we know little about the mechanisms of diffusion for preemption of atypical policies such as animal regulations that lack a clear economic or ideological motivation. In this article, we propose and test a theory of conditional policy learning to explain the diffusion of atypical policies. We posit that a type of policy learning is…
May it please the twitterverse
This article examines the extent to which Twitter has been adopted by judges on state supreme courts, and how these judges use the platform. While social media usage by other politicians has been examined in a variety of contexts, judges have been universally ignored. We find that elected judges are more likely to use Twitter, primarily to engage with the public. Additionally, while they do not engage with the public like traditional politicians,…
The Effect of Opinion Readability on the Impact of U.S. Supreme Court Precedents in State High Courts
Objective This article examines whether more readable U.S. Supreme Court opinions are cited with greater frequency in state courts of last resort. Methods We use random slope, random intercept multilevel models to analyze 30 years of state high court citations to U.S. Supreme Court majority opinions issued during the 1987–2006 terms. Results Our analysis reveals that opinion readability exerts a strong substantive impact on citation rates. This e…
Giving the Straw Man a Brain
Rigid rules and slippery standards
Objective This research develops a new theoretical framework that explains how the U.S. Supreme Court's decision between a rigid rule and a flexible standard influences compliance with the decisions of state high courts over time. Methods To assess the effects of doctrinal rules and standards on state court compliance, we apply our theoretical framework to an examination of state court responses to Miller v. California (1973) and Atkins v. Virgin…
Examining the Interconnectedness of State High Court Twitter
Judges are not the first political officials that come to mind when one considers the role of social media in modern politics. Following in the wake of some prominent judicial personalities adopting Twitter, however, a growing number of state high court judges have adopted and established more public personas on the platform. Judges use Twitter in substantively different ways than traditional elected officials (Curry and Fix 2019); however, littl…
Law (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Law (9 works) · Politics (8 works) · Judicial and Constitutional Studies (7 works) · State (computer science (7 works) · Supreme court (6 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · State supreme court (5 works) · Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems (4 works)