1. The role of public participation in democracy and its effects on policy

2. The role of courts in a democracy and how they judge policy & policymaking

3. Jurisprudential regimes

“deference should be accorded to the agency’s interpretation … the regulatory scheme is technical and complex, the agency considered the matter in a detailed and reasoned fashion, and the decision involves reconciling conflicting policies” - Chevron v. NRDC

“the degree of the agency’s care, its consistency, formality, and relative expertness…the fairness and deliberation that should underlie a pronouncement of such force (APA notice and comment is ‘designed to assure due deliberation’).” US v. Mead Corp.

Data (so far)

All 517 Administrative Law1 SCOTUS cases + a random sample of 175 federal circuit court cases 1969-2025.

  • 100+ case factors
    • Parties, briefs, citations, opinions, outcomes
    • Nature of the agency action at issue (Rulemaking, Ratemaking, Licensing, Adjudication, etc.)
    • Discussion of legislative process, APA, expertise, public participation, accountability
  • Ideology: Justices (Segal-Cover scores) × Policy (Spaeth criteria)
  • Statutes at issue (details TBD)
  • Draft & final rules + comments where rule is at issue (1984-2025)

~20,000 bits of new hand-coded information

SCOTUS AdLaw Cases

SCOTUS AdLaw Cases by Process

SCOTUS AdLaw Cases by Agency

by Number of Public Comments

by Number of Public Comments

Preliminary results

#1. What kinds of policy processes withstand judicial review?

  • ❌ - expertise
  • ❌ - accountability
  • ✅ - participatory/controversial
  • ✅ - deregulatory

#2. Why are policies made through notice and comment more likely to be struck down?

  • ❌ - ideological voting
  • ❌ - selection from lower courts
  • ✅ - controversial/salient (but see #1)

#3. Was Chevron/Mead a regime?

  • The jurisprudential regimes debate used 1969-2000 data; I can revisit with 25 years of additional cases

Log odds of vote for agency

Log odds of vote for agency