[ Report Home | Previous Page | Next Page ] Pay to Play V. Paying To Play E. Respondent Money Did Not Have Much Impact

No significant correlation was found between the court’s petition-acceptance rate and the contributions that the justices received from petition respondents. These respondents wanted the court to reject their opponents’ petitions because they already were prevailing over the petitioners in a lower court.

The accompanying graph shows that it was petitioner—not respondent—contributions that correlated with the court’s petition-acceptance rate. The left two bars show that the court accepted a high percentage (19 - 20 percent) of all petitions filed by petitioners who contributed money to the justices campaigns (regardless of whether or not the opposing respondents also contributed). In contrast, the graph’s right two bars show that the court petition-acceptance rate plummets (to 5 - 6 percent) when the petitioner did not contribute to the justices (regardless of whether or not the opposing respondents contributed).
 

Petitioner Money Overshadows Respondent Money

 
 

The accompanying graph shows that the court’s petition-acceptance rate stays within two percentage point of its overall rate of 11 percent regardless of how much money the justices received from respondents.
 
 

Respondent Money Showed Little Impact on Petition-Acceptance Rates

 
 

This last graph reveals what happens to petition-acceptance rates depending on the extent to which the petitioners or the respondents contributed more money to the justices. To obtain these figures, respondent contributions were subtracted from petitioner contributions for each petition. This created three groups of petitions:

• Those in which respondents contributed more money;
• Those in which petitioners contributed more money; and
• Those in which there was no difference because both sides contributed equally or—more commonly—because neither side contributed anything to the justices.

The court accepted 22 percent of the petitions in which the petitioners contributed the most money (or twice the court’s overall average rate of 11 percent). The court’s average acceptance rate dropped to just 7 percent when petitioners contributed less than respondents.
 
 

The respondent-advantage data to the right of the center “$0” bar are much less dramatic. These data show that the court’s acceptance rate of petitions gradually rises as respondent contributions outpace petitioner contributions. Note that this trend is the opposite of what might be expected, given that respondents do not want the court to review these petitions. A closer look, however, reveals that the court’s acceptance rate for petitions rises a total of just three percentage points. Again, there is little correlation between respondent contributions and the court’s petition-acceptance rate.