state court strategies and politics during the appropriations process

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1417542

State Court Strategies and Politics during theAppropriations Process

JAMES W. DOUGLAS and ROGER E. HARTLEY

This article explores state court budgetary strategies and their effectiveness in the ap-propriations process as perceived by key budgeting actors. In general, we find evi-dence of state judiciaries that try to remain “above politics” when dealing with budgetissues. The most important strategies to this effect include submitting realistic re-quests, providing documentation to support needs, and not using budget “weapons” attheir disposal (e.g., writs of mandamus). However, the survey results do indicate thatstate judiciaries use certain strategies that have a more political tint, such as lobbyingby court officials.

INTRODUCTION

The judicial branch of government has a considerable amount of influence over publicbudgeting in the United States. The courts, through their rulings, have affected the fundinglevels of many government programs. Court decisions in such areas as busing desegrega-tion, standing-to-sue requirements, welfare eligibility, and prison overcrowding haveforced officials to shift resources among government programs.1 The courts have also af-fected public budgeting by ruling on cases concerning the powers of budgeting actors(such as the line-item veto power of the president), how funds should be spent based uponlegislative intent, the validity of voter referenda, the legality of revenue measures, and the

Douglas & Hartley/State Court Strategies and Politics 35

James W. Douglas is an Assistant Professor at the University of South Carolina. Roger E. Hartley is an As-sistant Professor at Roanoke College in Virginia. E-mail: ⟨hartley@roanoke. edu⟩.

1. Jeffrey D. Straussman, “Courts and Public Purse Strings: Have Portraits of Budgeting Missed Some-thing?” Public Administration Review 46, no. 4 (July/Aug. 1986): 345–351; Donald Axelrod, A BudgetQuartet: Critical Policy and Management Issues (New York: St. Martin’s Press, Inc., 1989); Susan A.MacManus and Patricia A. Turner, “Litigation as a Budgetary Constraint: Problem Areas and Costs,”Public Administration Review 53, no. 5 (Sept./Oct. 1993): 462–472.

2. Axelrod, A Budget Quartet, 48.

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1417542

breadth of balance budget requirements.2 Court decisions in these areas have altered thediscretion and power of actors in the executive and legislative branches.

Much is known about the influence the courts have upon the budgetary process. Thisinfluence affects executive and legislative discretion as well as the balance of power be-tween the executive and legislative branches of government. Little is known, however,about how the judiciary deals with the executive and legislative branches when trying toobtain the funding it needs to carry out its functions. Understanding the relationship be-tween the courts and the other two branches during the appropriations process is impor-tant because the ability of the courts to acquire sufficient funding affects judicialeffectiveness and independence. The deficiency in knowledge regarding this aspect of ju-dicial budgeting is particularly evident at the state level. The knowledge that has beengenerated in this area is found almost exclusively in the public law literature rather thanthe mainstream public budgeting or public administration literatures. Expanding ourknowledge in this area is necessary if we are to understand fully how budgeting affects theability of the judicial branch to play effectively its vital role in American government. Thisarticle explores court budgetary strategies in the states in an effort to understand betterhow the courts behave when they enter the political arena of public budgeting. It discussesthe strategies utilized by state courts and the perceived effectiveness of these strategies athelping the courts get what they ask for during the appropriations process.

BUDGETING FOR THE COURTS: WHAT WE KNOW

Budgetary Procedures for State Judicial Systems

Carl Baar3 provided a good overview of how the budgetary process works for state courts.Baar showed that state judicial systems rely upon local governments for much of theirfunding. In some cases, state appropriations account for only a small percentage of judicialfunding. However, other states provide funding for the vast majority, if not all, of court ex-penditures. States vary in the types of judicial activities they fund. Some states providefunding for their appellate courts only. Others provide additional funding to support theactivities of their lower courts.

The process courts follow in preparing and submitting their budget requests variesacross states. Baar4 identified four types of budget processes that courts follow: centralpreparation, central review and submission, separate submission, and external prepara-tion. Under central preparation, a state judicial administrative office is responsible forpreparing a budget for all court activities. Under central review and submission, all courtsand judicial agencies submit budget requests to a state judicial administrative office. Theadministrative office reviews the requests and may make changes to them. Under sepa-

36 Public Budgeting & Finance / Spring 2001

3. Carl Baar, Separate but Subservient: Court Budgeting in the American States (Lexington, Mass.: D.C.Heath, 1975).

4. Ibid., 11.5. Ibid., 25.

rate submission, each court and judicial agency prepares its own budget. No central au-thority in the judicial branch reviews the requests. Finally, under external preparation, anexecutive branch office is responsible for preparing at least part of the judicial budget.

Once budget requests are prepared, they are submitted to either the executive branch,the legislature, or both. Baar5 reported that in most states, court budgets are sent to the ex-ecutive branch for review. The governors in these states are generally permitted to makechanges to the judicial requests when putting together their executive budget recommen-dations. However, in some cases, governors follow a practice of not revising the requests,giving deference to the judicial branch. The governors in several states are not permittedto revise the judicial requests but must send them on unchanged with the executive bud-get to the legislature. According to Baar, in states where the governor has full authority tomake changes, the governor is more likely than the legislature to alter the requests.

Finally, Baar6 explained that state legislatures are permitted to change judicial requestsin all states except West Virginia. Hearings are held in state legislatures to determine judi-cial funding levels. Some states have joint committees that deal with court appropriations.Other states have separate committees in each house. Still other states have separate com-mittees that meet jointly. Legislatures often appropriate funds in a line-item format, whichcan restrict court budgetary discretion over how appropriations are spent. Governors withthe line-item veto power may use it against judicial appropriations once they have beenpassed by the legislature.

Aside from recognizing the basic procedures followed for judicial budgeting, scholarsand other students of the judiciary have written widely on topics relevant to the generalfiscal administration of the courts. These topics include such things as revenue estimation,procedural compliance, accounting practices, planning and procurement activities, fee col-lections, and auditing.7 Work in these areas is largely technical, providing explanations forcurrent practices and advice to court administrators. Such sources, however, do not discussthe more political aspects of the budgetary process, such as budgetary strategies.

Separation of Powers and the Politics of Budgeting

One factor that works against the courts in their efforts to gain ample funding is the po-litical nature of the budgetary process. Thomas G. Walker and Deborah Barrow8 arguethat budgetary institutions place the courts at a disadvantage when competing for re-


6. Ibid., 48.7. For example, see Harry O. Lawson and Barbara J. Gletne, Fiscal Administration in State-Funded

Courts (Williamsburg, Va.: National Center for State Courts, 1981); K. Chabotar, Analyzing Costs in theCourts (Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice, 1987); Robert W. Tobin, Supplemental Commentson the Ohio Court Financial Study: Technical Assistance Report (North Andover, Mass.: National Centerfor State Courts, Northeastern Regional Office, 1988); idem, Internal Control of Court-Collected Funds(Williamsburg, Va.: National Center for State Courts, 1995); idem, Trial Court Budgeting (Williamsburg,Va.: National Center for State Courts, 1996).

8. Thomas G. Walker and Deborah Barrow, “Funding the Federal Judiciary: The Congressional Con-nection,” Judicature 69, no. 1 (June/July 1985): 43–50.

sources. Because the courts do not hand out political pork or have an active constituency,legislators have little incentive to provide the courts with generous budgets.

Baar9 adds that the judicial branch is at the mercy of the executive and legislativebranches to a large extent when attempting to gain resources. Governors and state legis-latures have strong budgetary powers, whereas state courts have few. The judiciary mustrely upon the other two branches for most of its funding. As a result, the executive andlegislative branches have a powerful tool that can be used against the judicial branch.This power is not limited to controlling funding levels. The legislative branch can write itsappropriations in such a way that court discretion is severely limited. The legislature canalso restrict judicial discretion by hindering court attempts to shift money among ac-counts.

Restricted Budgets and the Courts

Perhaps because of the political nature of the budgetary process, courts at all levels of gov-ernment often find themselves swamped with more cases than they can deal with effec-tively. Unfortunately, they seldom receive increases in funds that could help them copewith their heavy caseloads.10 This problem becomes particularly acute during bad eco-nomic times, in which judicial budgets are often cut to make up for revenue shortfalls.11

When fiscal pressure increases, the courts are often forced to accept large backlogs, stafflayoffs, judge pay cuts, court shutdowns, and the discontinuation of civil cases for long pe-riods of time.12

Court Budgeting Strategies

Despite the importance of acquiring funding sufficient to carry out the work of the judi-cial branch, little has been written about the strategies used by the courts to obtain whatthey need from the budgetary process. Two studies examining court strategies in the ap-propriations process have been conducted at the federal level. Dean L. Yarwood andBradley C. Canon13 found that the Supreme Court attempts to gain congressional favor by


9. Baar, Separate but Subservient, 1.10. Donald C. Dilworth, “Caseloads Could Double for Budget-Strapped Courts,” Trial 29, no. 8 (1993):

88(3); J. Michael McWilliams, “Dwindling Judicial Resources,” ABA Journal 79 (July 1993): 8.11. Don J. DeBenedictis, “Tight Budgets Squeeze Courts,” ABA Journal 78 (Dec. 1992): 22(2).12. Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., Martin B. McNamara, and Irwin F. Sentilles III, “Court Finance and Uni-

tary Budgeting,” Yale Law Journal 81 (1972): 1286; Paul Katzeff, “Dwindling Judicial-System BudgetsFace Deficits and Cutbacks: Personnel and Programs Are on the Hit List,” National Law Journal 13, no. 14(1991): 6; Don J. DeBenedictis, “Unpaid Leave for Judges: More States Search for Solutions to Court Bud-get Crises,” ABA Journal 78 (April 1992): 17; Gerald L. Chaleff, “Adequate Funding for the Courts: Cur-rent Proposals Threaten the Courts’ Ability to Function,” Los Angeles Lawyer (July/Aug. 1993): 9(2).

13. Dean L. Yarwood and Bradley C. Canon, “On the Supreme Court’s Annual Trek to the Capital,”Judicature 63, no. 7 (Feb. 1980): 322–327.

submitting fiscally conservative requests. They also found that Justices often appear atbudget hearings to add their prestige to the Court’s budget requests. Walker and Barrow14

found that federal courts attempt to maintain credibility with Congress by submitting con-servative requests, providing justifications for all requests, and showing evidence of soundfinancial management. They also found that the courts place judges on judicial budgetcommittees who tend to be from states or districts with senators or representatives on thecongressional appropriations committees and subcommittees. This ensures that the courtswill have friends on the congressional committees who will listen to their concerns. Thecourts also appoint committee members who have experience as state legislators or mem-bers of Congress. This guarantees that members of the judicial committees will have polit-ical knowledge of how legislatures work.

Only one study has examined court budgeting strategies at the state level. James W.Douglas15 interviewed key budget officers from the three branches of government inOklahoma and found a variety of strategies in use by the state’s courts. These strategies in-cluded lobbying and testifying before the legislature by court administrators and judges,providing evidence that justifies court needs, exploiting relationships between court offi-cials and legislators, engaging in acquisitive behavior, mobilizing political allies, capitaliz-ing on budgetary rules and procedures advantageous to the courts, and reminding thelegislature of the judicial power to issue writs of mandamus in order to force the appropri-ation of funds. Douglas also found that budgetary rules and procedures beneficial to thecourts, respect for judicial independence by the other branches of government, supportfrom lawyers in the legislature, legislative political self-interest, and the knowledge andskill of the chief court administrator all played an important role in helping the courts inOklahoma to successfully acquire funding.

Finally, Baar,16 in his study of state court budgetary practices, did examine the determi-nants of success for state courts during the appropriations process. He surveyed executivebudget officers in each state, asking which factors led to budget success for the courts. Theexecutive officers responded that deference to the judiciary as a third branch of govern-ment, realistic judicial requests, and good relations with the legislature were importantfactors in judicial budget success. However, Baar also found that executive budget officersoften viewed the judicial branch as lacking budgetary competence. The officials inter-viewed stated that court budget success could improve if the judiciary would simply dosuch things as provide more justification for its requests and request more money.

In general, the literature on the politics of funding state courts is limited. Improving ourunderstanding of the budgetary strategies used by the courts, as well as the effectivenessof each strategy, is important. Doing so will enable us to provide information to court offi-cials that can help them improve their results in the budgetary process.


14. Walker and Barrow, “Funding the Federal Judiciary,” 43–50.15. James W. Douglas, “Court Strategies in the Appropriations Process: The Oklahoma Case,” Public

Budgeting, Accounting, and Financial Management (forthcoming).16. Baar, Separate but Subservient, 56.

METHODOLOGY

The data used in this article come from three surveys that were mailed to key judicial, ex-ecutive, and legislative officials in each state. Each survey asked a distinct set of questionspertaining to court budget procedures, court budgetary politics, court budgetary strate-gies, and determinants of success for the courts. In this article, we focus on questions re-lated to state court budget strategies. Each group of subjects was sent a unique surveydesigned to address issues pertinent to the group. Similar questions were included in eachof the three surveys to facilitate intergroup comparisons. The three groups surveyed in-cluded the chief court administrators, the directors of the executive budget offices, and thedirectors of the legislative budget offices. These groups were selected because of their vastknowledge and experience in dealing with judicial appropriations in their states.

The surveys were mailed to each group in early July 1999. A second mailing was sentout one month later. After the second mailing, e-mail and telephone contacts were madeto all nonrespondents. These contacts were followed up with a third mailing in January2000. The surveys elicited a response rate of 82 percent (41 states) for court administra-tors, 90 percent (45 states) for executive budget officers, and 90 percent (45 states) for leg-islative budget officers. Thirty-nine of the 45 legislative responses came from centrallegislative offices that served the entire state legislature. In the remaining six states, eachchamber of the legislature maintains a separate budget staff. In these cases, responseswere received from the House budget offices.17

To uncover the types of strategies used by the courts and the extent to which thosestrategies are important in helping the judicial branch get funding, each survey asked therespondents (court administrators, executive budget officers, and legislative budget offi-cers) to rate a series of budgetary strategies. Respondents were instructed to use a five-point scale to evaluate the usefulness of each strategy at helping the courts gain the fund-ing they need. Respondents were asked to rate the strategy as a 1 if it was “not useful” tothe courts. A score of 5 indicated that the strategy was “very useful” for the courts. The listof strategies was derived from the previous literature about state court budgeting and thebudgeting literature that describes agency strategies during the appropriations process.

As with all survey research, we are limited to making inferences about actor behaviorbased upon the perceptions of strategies by respondents. We acknowledge that the per-ceptions of behavior may not be the same as actual behavior. Despite this limitation, sur-veys have been used by other scholars to address similar research questions.18 Also, therespondents that we have chosen are the most appropriate to report on budget strategies


17. This is consistent with methodology used by Glenn Abney and Thomas P. Lauth in “The Line-ItemVeto in the States: An Instrument of Fiscal Restraint or an Instrument of Partisanship?” Public Adminis-tration Review 3, no. 3 (May/June 1985): 372–377.

18. For example, see Baar, Separate but Subservient; Glenn Abney and Thomas P. Lauth, “The End ofExecutive Dominance in State Appropriations,” Public Administration Review 17, no. 4 (Aug./Sept. 1998):829–840.

given their experience in dealing with judicial budgets. Finally, our high response ratefrom the population increases our confidence in our findings.

BUDGET STRATEGIES OF STATE COURTS

Lobbying Efforts

Previous research in the area of court budgeting has indicated that court officials at thefederal and state levels engage in lobbying.19 Judicial officials, including both judges andadministrators, seek to convince the chief executive and members of the legislature thatcourt spending requests should be met. Lobbying may take several forms, and differentactors have varying amounts of influence in the political arena. Therefore, a series of lob-bying strategies was presented to the survey participants. These strategies can be groupedinto the following categories: direct lobbying by justices and judges, direct lobbying bycourt administrators, and indirect methods of lobbying.

Table 1 lists the mean scores of each survey group concerning their perceptions of theusefulness of the various lobbying strategies. The lobbying activities of the chief justiceswere viewed by all respondent groups to be moderately to highly useful. Each group indi-cated that lobbying the governor and individual members of the legislature tends to be amore useful activity for chief justices than lobbying before legislative committees. Inter-estingly, the mean response of court administrators for chief justices’ lobbying of gover-nors and individual legislators was significantly higher (4.07 mean out of 5) than that ofthe executive officers (3.54 mean) and somewhat higher than that of legislative officers(3.70 mean). This could indicate that the courts have an inflated perception of the utilityof this strategy.

We also asked the actors three questions about the importance of the lobbying activitiesof “other justices or judges.” In general, Table 1 shows that these strategies were viewed asless important than the lobbying activities of the chief justice. The most important of thethree strategies according to respondents was for judges to lobby the governor or individualmembers of the legislature.The responses suggest that this strategy is moderately useful forthe courts, but not as useful as having the chief justice lobby. The lobbying of other judgesbefore legislative committees and local officials20 was rated as being even less useful athelping the courts to gain funding. Court administrators typically felt that the lobbying ac-


19. Yarwood and Canon, “On the Supreme Court’s Annual Trek,” 322–327; Douglas, “Court Strat-egies.”

20. Court administrators were asked if local governments in their states provide any funding to help fi-nance the state courts (usually district/trial courts). Sixteen of the 41 respondents (39 percent) indicatedthat local governments in their states do provide funding for the state courts. For strategies dealing withgetting money from local officials, only those states indicating that local financing is received are exam-ined. Otherwise, scores for these strategies will be artificially low because states not receiving local fund-ing for their courts are likely to score such strategies as being “not useful.”

tivities of other judges were more important than did officials in the legislative and execu-tive branches. These differences, however, were not statistically significant.

Lobbying activities by state court administrative officials appear to be important forcourt budgets. Questions posed concerning the lobbying activities of court administrativeofficials were similar to those asked about chief justices and other judges: lobbying beforelegislative committees, lobbying the governor and legislators, and lobbying local officials.Of these activities, respondents indicated that lobbying before legislative committees is


TABLE 1Actor Perceptions of Court Lobbying Strategies

Court Executive LegislativeAdministrator Officer Officer

Strategies Mean response (n) Mean response (n) Mean response (n)

Chief Justice Appears beforeLegislative Committees 3.76 (41) 3.20 (40) 3.38 (45)

Chief Justice Lobbies Governorand/or Individual Legislators 4.07 (41) 3.54 (39)* 3.70 (43)

Other Judges Appear beforeLegislative Committees 3.00 (40) 2.97 (39) 2.80 (45)

Other Judges Lobby Governorand/or Individual Legislators 3.36 (40) 3.00 (39) 3.42 (43)

Justices/Judges Lobby LocalOfficials 2.94 (16) 2.29 (14) 2.40 (10)

Court Administrative OfficialsAppear before LegislativeCommittees 4.27 (41) 3.72 (39)* 3.55 (44)**

Court Administrative OfficialsLobby Governor and/orIndividual Legislators 4.02 (41) 3.15 (39)*** 3.34 (44)**

Court Administrative OfficialsLobby Local Officials 3.13 (16) 2.50 (14) 2.56 (9)

Maintain Informal Contact withLegislative Officials 4.37 (41) 3.74 (38)*** 3.82 (44)**

Maintain Informal Contact withLocal Government Officials 3.56 (16) 3.21 (14) 2.67 (9)

Capitalize on Personal Relationsbetween Court Officials andLegislators 4.10 (40) 3.49 (37)** 3.37 (41)**

*Significantly different from court administrators at p , .05 (two-tailed test).**Significantly different from court administrators at p , .01 (two-tailed test).***Significantly different from court administrators at p , .001 (two-tailed test).

the most useful lobbying strategy employed by court administrative officials. The scoreproduced by the court administrators (4.27) is significantly (p , .01) higher than the scorefor legislative officers.

Having court administrative officials lobby the governor and members of the legisla-ture was also marked by the court administrators as having high utility (4.02). Executive(3.15) and legislative (3.34) officers were significantly (p , .001 and p , .01, respectively)less impressed with the court administrative officials’ lobbying effectiveness in this regard.Only the court administrators rated the lobbying of local officials as being at least moder-ately useful. Once again, the mean score for court administrators was higher than that ofthe other two groups, although the differences were not statistically significant.

We also queried budget actors about other important lobbying strategies, such as main-taining informal contacts with legislative officials and local actors as well as capitalizing onpersonal relationships between court officials and legislators. These strategies, in general,appear to be useful to the courts in helping them acquire funding, particularly the mainte-nance of informal contacts with state legislative officials. Table 1 reveals that each groupof respondents rated this strategy relatively high in effectiveness. Court administratorsalso perceived this strategy to be significantly more useful than the executive and legisla-tive officers (p , .001 and p , .01, respectively).

Maintaining informal contacts with local officials was rated lower than maintaining in-formal contacts with legislative officials by the respondents. Although the difference wasnot significant, the court administrators rated this strategy higher than the other branches.The actors also rated capitalizing on personal relations with legislators as being at leastmoderately useful. Again, we see a pattern of higher mean responses by the court admin-istrators. Here the average response by court administrators was significantly (p , .01)higher than those of the other officials.

Overall, Table 1 indicates that lobbying the governor and legislature tends to be a use-ful strategy for the judicial branch. Although the executive and legislative officers did notpost mean scores greater than 3.82 for any of these lobbying strategies, the scores tend tobe higher than the scores for most other types of strategies (see below). Lobbying strate-gies directed at local governments on the other hand, are not perceived to be as useful bythe respondents. A possible explanation is that local governments are more limited intheir ability to provide funding than state governments.

Court “Weapons”

Another area in which we sought information concerned what strategic “weapons” courtsused to secure funding. The courts, in order to ensure adequate funding, have the power tosue and to issue writs of mandamus to force the other branches of government to providethe funding necessary for the judiciary to perform its constitutional functions.21 Perhaps


21. Hazard et al., “Court Finance,” 1286.

the most famous example of the courts resorting to such actions occurred in 1991 whenthe chief justice of the New York courts brought suit against the governor and legislatureof that state to increase the judicial appropriation.22 Such actions are somewhat extremeand are unlikely to occur with much frequency given the strong retaliatory powerswielded by the other branches of government. It is possible, however, that state judiciariesthreaten to bring suits or issue writs with some frequency to convince governors and legis-lators of the need to improve court funding, much the same as governors threaten to usetheir line-item veto powers to convince legislators to support gubernatorial policies.

Table 2 provides a summary of the perceptions of the court administrators, executivebudget officers, and legislative officers concerning the effectiveness of courts’ use ofweapons to secure funding. Lawsuits (or threats thereof) and writs of mandamus (orthreats thereof) were not considered important strategies by the respondents. First, athreat of suing the governor or legislature to provide funds was generally agreed to be notuseful by each respondent group. In fact, the mean score for court administrators (1.10)was the lowest for this group for any strategy. Interestingly, this is one of only three strate-gies where the scores for both executive and legislative officers were higher than thescores for court administrators, although the differences are not statistically significant.Second, a suit (or threat thereof) against local governments was also considered an unim-portant strategy for the courts. Court administrators, however, felt that suing local govern-ments was significantly (p ,.05) more important than executive officers, perhaps as aresult of court administrators’ being more aware of the need to carry out such activities atthe local level.

The survey results were generally the same concerning the usefulness of writs of man-damus, which were overwhelmingly viewed to be unimportant weapons for courts to useto obtain funding from both the state and local levels. It is possible that courts know bothof these strategies are at their disposal, but they consider their use or threat as a last resort.Using or threatening to use these weapons could increase tensions between the branchesand invite retaliation. It is also possible that most court systems do not believe that theirfunding problems are so dire that lawsuits and writs are warranted.

Mobilizing Allies and Pork Barrel Politics

Often executive branch agencies will mobilize political allies to come to their aid and sup-port their budgetary claims during the appropriations process.23 Despite a lack of a coher-ent constituency for the courts, it is possible that court officials also seek to mobilizesupporters to provide assistance. In this vein, we queried the actors about the importanceof mobilizing political supporters and appealing to the public (see Table 3). The respon-


22. Wachtler v. Cuomo, No. 6034, 91/N.Y. Sup. Ct., filed Sept. 25, 1991.23. Irene S. Rubin, Shrinking the Federal Government: The Effect of Cutbacks on Five Federal Agencies

(New York: Longman, 1985); John L. Mikesell, Fiscal Administration: Analysis and Application for thePublic Sector, 4th ed. (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1995).

dents tended to believe that mobilizing political supporters was moderately useful. Themean response of court administrators was, again, higher than that of the other respon-dents and significantly different from that of executive officers (p , .05). Appealing to thepublic was not viewed to be a useful strategy by the actors. The results ranged from a lowof 1.69 by legislative analysts to a high of 2.28 by court administrators. Court administra-tors rated this strategy significantly higher than legislative officers (p ,.05).

Since the actors viewed the mobilizing of political allies to be at least moderately usefulas a strategy, we asked which groups typically lobbied on the courts’ behalf.24 A total of205 responses were given to this question, a mean of 1.54 groups cited per respondent.Twenty-six respondents (19.8 percent) left this question blank. Table 4 reports thosegroups that were mentioned most frequently by all respondents. The most common alliesthat have lobbied on behalf of the courts are attorney groups, courts staff, judges’ associa-tions, and government associations (primarily local). Attorney groups included state barassociations, trial lawyers associations, district attorney associations, and defense attorneyassociations. The combination of these attorney groups was mentioned a total of 64 timesby all respondents. Courts staff were mentioned a total of 40 times by the various respon-


TABLE 2Actor Perceptions of Courts’ Legal “Weapons”



Sue or Threaten to Sue Governorand/or Legislature to ProvideAdequate Funding 1.10 (41) 1.18 (39) 1.26 (43)

Sue or Threaten to Sue LocalGovernments to ProvideAdequate Funding 1.44 (16) 1.15 (13) 1.22 (9)

Issue or Threaten Writ ofMandamus for Governor and/orLegislature to ProvideAdequate Funding 1.15 (40) 1.15 (39) 1.12 (43)

Issue or Threaten Writ ofMandamus to Force LocalGovernments to ProvideAdequate Funding 1.33 (15) 1.36 (14) 1.18 (11)

24. We built a frequency list categorizing what court, executive, and legislative respondents listed un-der the question: “In the past several years, what groups have lobbied on the courts’ behalf during thebudgetary process?” Note that some respondents answered “none” or “don’t know.”

dents. This category comprised clerks of courts, court reporters, court interpreters, courtofficers, and court employees unions. Judicial associations were mentioned a total of 33times by respondents. Note, however, that this did not include the previously mentionedpractice of using individual judges to lobby for funding. Finally, government associationsranked fourth (mentioned 15 times by respondents).

Interestingly, a total of 12 respondents mentioned that no group had lobbied on behalfof the courts in recent years. Another 26 respondents left this question blank, possibly in-dicating that they were unaware of groups lobbying on the courts’ behalf. This finding,combined with the fact that the most common court allies were essentially members of thelegal or court community, is important. It suggests that many court systems are not adeptat building coalitions and garnering outside support for judicial funding. As a result, themobilizing of political allies is only moderately useful at helping courts gain resources. Ittherefore might prove beneficial to the courts to become better skilled at mobilizing po-tential supporters. This, however, might prove to be indigestible to the courts given their“nonpolitical” status.

Finally, respondents were asked a related question dealing with the influence of “pork”on court funding levels. It is possible that the courts, just like agencies,25 could garner po-litical support in the legislature by distributing court resources to key legislative districts.For example, it is possible that the courts could direct local spending projects, such as theestablishing of video courtrooms, to the districts of key legislators. Although the dollaramounts for such projects is likely to be small, these projects would bring jobs and re-sources to local constituents. How did our respondents rank this strategy? Table 3 showsthat across the board, the response was that this strategy is not particularly useful. It maybe that more of the “pork” (if there is any) is actually granted by local governments given


25. Irene S. Rubin, The Politics of Public Budgeting: Getting and Spending, Borrowing and Balancing(Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House, 1990).

TABLE 3Actor Perceptions of Mobilizing Political Allies


Strategies Mean response (r) Mean response (n) Mean response (n)

Mobilize Political Supporters 3.55 (40) 3.08 (39)* 3.17 (42)Appeal to Public 2.28 (40) 2.08 (38) 1.69 (45)*Courts Distribute Resources toLegislative Districts (Pork) 1.93 (40) 2.26 (39) 2.10 (42)

*Significantly different from court administrators at p , .05 (two-tailed test).

that the courthouse as a physical plant is often funded by local tax bases. This strategy isone of the three strategies where the scores for both executive and legislative officerswere higher than the scores for court administrators, although the differences are not sta-tistically significant.

Fiscally Prudent Strategies

Both Walker and Barrow26 at the federal level, and Douglas27 in Oklahoma found that thecourts often behave in a fiscally prudent manor to maintain their credibility with the otherbranches of government. Such behavior may take the form of submitting realistic re-quests, providing documentation supporting their needs, and operating more efficiently in


TABLE 4Most Common Groups Who Have Lobbied the Courts

Lobby Group Number of Times Mentioned

Attorney Groups (state bar associations; district 64 mentions by respondentsattorneys; trial lawyers’ associations; defense 31.2% of responsesattorneys’ associations)

Courts Staff (clerk of courts; court reporters; 40 mentions by respondentscourt interpreters; service officers; court 19.5% of responsesemployee unions)

Judges’ Associations (not including individual judge 33 mentions by respondentsefforts) 16.1% of responses

Government Associations (federal, state, counties, 15 mentions by respondentscities, etc.) 7.3% of responses

No Groups Lobby 12 mentions by respondents5.9 of responses

Child Service Organizations (child advocates, child 9 mentions by respondentsabuse) 4.3% of responses

Probation and Law Enforcement 8 mentions by respondents3.9% of responses

Citizens Groups (taxpayers’ associations, court 7 mentions by respondentsadvocates groups, etc.) 3.4% of responses

Other (business insurance groups; women’s 6 mentions by respondentsgroups, unions) 4.9% of responses

Missing (unknown or left blank) 30 total unknown or blank

26. Walker and Barrow, “Funding the Federal Judiciary,” 49.27. Douglas, “Court Strategies.”

order to save resources for other activities. Evidence in the budgeting literature showsthat such behavior is often beneficial to executive branch agencies during the budgetaryprocess.28 We asked respondents a series of questions to uncover the extent to which fis-cally prudent behavior is beneficial to the state courts.

First, respondents were asked about the importance of submitting realistic budget re-quests to the executive and legislative branches. Doing so may get elected officials to trustcourt estimates of need and thus to provide sufficient resources to cover what is re-quested. Table 5 reveals that both court administrators (3.95) and executive budget offi-cers (4.18) find this strategy useful in helping the courts to acquire funding. The meanscore of the legislative officers (3.58) is lower than both of the other branches and signifi-cantly lower (p , .05) than the scores of the executive branch officials, indicating that leg-islative officers are less enthusiastic about this strategy’s importance in influencinglegislative appropriations for the courts.

Second, respondents were asked about the importance of providing documentation tothe governor and legislature that justifies court funding requests. Each of the groups ratedthis strategy very high. In fact, the mean scores for each group were the highest for anystrategy, indicating that providing evidence of need is quite useful to the courts when try-ing to gain resources. A related question asked if the courts ever withheld documentation,claiming that as a separate branch of government the judiciary is entitled to what it asksfor and does not need to provide evidence of need. None of the groups rated this strategyeven moderately high. This was also one of the three strategies where the scores for bothexecutive and legislative officers were higher than the scores for court administrators, al-though the differences are not statistically significant.

Finally, respondents were questioned about the usefulness of the courts’ becomingmore efficient in order to save money for other things. Court administrators rated thisstrategy relatively high (3.87) but lower than providing realistic requests and supportingdocumentation. The mean score among court administrators for this strategy was signifi-cantly higher (p ,.01) than the mean score for legislative officers (3.27) and slightlyhigher than the mean score for executive officers (3.64).

By and large it appears that behaving in a fiscally prudent manor is a useful strategy forthe courts to follow during the budgetary process. Each of the respondent groups ratedsuch behavior as being at least moderately useful. Legislative officials, however, were notquite as enthusiastic as the other two branches about the usefulness of realistic court re-quests and court efficiency, but they scored providing supporting documentation veryhigh—in fact, it was the only strategy they scored higher than 3.82.

Budgetary Games

Government agencies have been known to play budgetary “shell games” to protect theirfunding. Two games that enjoy widespread use involve padding budget requests and keep-


28. Glenn Abney and Thomas P. Lauth, “The Executive Budget in the States: Normative Idea and Em-pirical Observations,” Policy Studies Journal 17, no. 4 (Summer 1989): 829–840.

ing vacant positions open so that money from those positions will be available for otherthings. As early as 1968, Ira Sharkansky29 found that state agencies, in their efforts to ex-pand their budgets, behaved in an acquisitive manor, requesting large increases in theirfunding levels. Sharkansky found that the more agencies asked for, the greater their re-quests for new funds were cut. However, larger requests for increased funding above thebase resulted in larger increases in total agency funding. Although several subsequentstudies30 have confirmed these findings for executive branch agencies, no studies have ex-amined how acquisitiveness affects court budgeting.

To examine the acquisitiveness question, we first asked respondents if the courts re-quested more funds than they needed during the appropriations process. Table 6 revealsthat none of the survey groups rated this strategy high. Given that submitting realistic re-quests (Table 5) was scored relatively high by the respondents, it is possible that the courtsdo not want to risk damaging their credibility with the other branches by asking for toomuch money.

Unfortunately, the above question does not completely capture the concept of acquisi-tiveness. It is possible that the courts could request large increases in their budgets, believ-ing that they need every dollar. Therefore, we asked the legislative officers to report theamounts of the legislative appropriation for fiscal years 1997 and 1998 and the judicial re-quest for state funds for fiscal year 1998. These data were used to measure judicial acquisi-


TABLE 5Actor Perceptions of Fiscally Prudent Strategies



Submit Realistic Requests 3.95 (41) 4.18 (39) 3.58 (45)Provide Supporting

Documentation 4.41 (41) 4.40 (40) 4.20 (45)Withhold Supporting

Documentation 1.34 (41) 1.51 (39) 1.51 (45)Become More Efficient 3.87 (40) 3.64 (39) 3.27 (44)*

*Significantly different from court administrators at p ,.01 (two-tailed test).

29. Ira Sharkansky, “Agency Requests, Gubernatorial Support, and Budget Success in State Legisla-tures,” American Political Science Review 62, no. 4 (Dec. 1968): 1220–1231.

30. Such as Joel A. Thompson, “Agency Requests, Gubernatorial Support, and Budget Success inState Legislatures Revisited,” Journal of Politics 49, no. 3 (Aug. 1987): 756–779; Hassan Abbas Saleh,“Agency Budget Success in State Legislatures: A Comparative Analysis” (D.P.A. diss., University of Geor-gia, 1991); Thomas P. Lauth, “Method of Agency Head Selection and Gubernatorial Influence overAgency Appropriations,” Public Administration Quarterly 17, no. 4 (Winter 1984): 396–409.

tiveness, legislative short-term support for court requests, and legislative support for courtbudget expansion (see Table 7). Forty legislative officers provided all of the informationasked for. Judicial acquisitiveness is measured as the judicial FY1998 request as a percent-age of the FY1997 appropriation. This variable revealed that the mean judicial requestwas 14.1 percent above the previous year’s appropriation levels. Previous studies havefound that executive branch agencies behave in a more acquisitive manner. For example,Sharkansky,31 in a study of 19 states, found that executive agencies requested an averageincrease of 24 percent above the previous year’s funding level. Thompson,32 studying 18states, found agencies asking for average increases of 38 percent. Saleh,33 in a study of 26states, found agency requests to be for amounts 27 percent higher than the previous year’slevel, on average. Finally, Clarke,34 examining 13 states, found average requests for in-creases to be 18.6 percent.

Legislative short-term support is measured as the FY1998 appropriation as a percent-age of the judicial FY1998 request. This shows the extent to which legislatures supportedjudicial requests. The data reveal that on average the judicial branch received 97.7 percentof its requested funding amount. This is a greater percentage than agencies tend to re-ceive. Sharkansky35 found that state agencies received, on average, approximately 87.2percent of the amount they requested. Thompson36 recorded that agencies receive ap-proximately 94 percent of the amount they requested. Saleh37 found that agencies re-ceived about 90 percent of the amount they requested. And Lauth,38 in a study of agencies


TABLE 6Actor Perceptions of Budgetary Shell Games



Courts Ask for More Than TheyNeed in Their BudgetRequests 2.37 (41) 2.21 (39) 2.60 (45)

Courts Keep Vacant PositionsOpen 2.55 (40) 2.53 (38) 2.56 (41)

31. Sharkansky, “Agency Requests,” 1224.32. Thompson, “Agency Requests,” 76133. Saleh, “Agency Budget Success,” 122.34. Wes Clarke, “Budget Requests and Agency Head Selection Methods,” Political Research Quar-

terly 50, no. 2 (June 1997): 301–316.35. Sharkansky, “Agency Requests,” 1223.36. Thompson, “Agency Requests,” 763.37. Saleh, “Agency Budget Success,” 108.38. Lauth, “Method of Agency Head Selection,” 400.

in Georgia, found that agencies got approximately 86 percent of the amount they re-quested.

What is especially interesting here is that in 12 of 41 states the legislature actually gavethe courts more than what was requested (on average, 5.5 percent more). This is a phe-nomenon that does not occur frequently for executive branch agencies and could signifythe respect the judiciary receives as a separate branch of government from the legislature.

Legislative support for court budget expansion is measured as the FY1998 appropria-tion as a percentage of the FY1997 appropriation. This shows the extent to which the leg-islature was willing to increase the judiciary’s budget above the previous year’s level. Thedata reveal that state courts received an average increase of 10.3 percent above their pre-vious year’s appropriations. This is lower than the average executive agency increases of13 percent identified by Sharkansky39 and 19 percent recorded by Thompson.40 However,this percentage falls above the percentage of 8 percent noted by Saleh and within the10–14 percent recorded by Lauth.41

To determine the relationship between these variables, judicial acquisitiveness was cor-related with the legislative support for short-term success and legislative support for bud-get expansion. Table 7 shows that a negative, significant (p , .01) relationship existsbetween judicial acquisitiveness and legislative support for short-term success. This indi-cates that as the courts ask for larger increases in their base budgets, the legislature cuts alarger percentage of the requests for increase. The results also confirm that if the courtsask for too little, the legislature might give them a larger percentage increase than theyasked for.

Table 7 also shows that a positive, significant (p , .01) relationship exists between judi-


TABLE 7Coefficients of Simple Correlation between Judicial Acquisitiveness

and Legislative Support

Legislative LegislativeJudicial Short-Term Support For

Acquisitiveness Support ExpansionCorrelation (n) Correlation (n) Correlation (n)

Judicial Acquisitiveness 1.000 (40) 2.599* (40) .610* (40)Legislative

Short-Term Support 2.599* (40) 1.000 (41) .254 (38)Legislative Support for

Expansion .610* .254 (40) 1.000 (44)

*Statistically significant at p , .01 (two-tailed test).

39. Sharkansky, “Agency Requests,” 1224.40. Thompson, “Agency Requests,” 761.41. Saleh, “Agency Budget Success,” 102; Lauth, “Method of Agency Head Selections,” 400.

cial acquisitiveness and support for budget expansion. The larger the percentage increasethe courts ask for, the larger the actual increase they receive over the previous year’s ap-propriation. This finding indicates that perhaps the courts should be asking for more intheir budget requests. Doing so might enable them to receive more from the legislature.The courts, however, may be reluctant to engage in such activities given the importancethey place on submitting realistic requests. Finding ways to justify larger increases in theirbudgets might allow the courts to maintain their credibility and give them access to moreresources.

The other shell game about which respondents were asked was that of leaving vacantpositions open in order to use the money assigned to those positions for other things. Ta-ble 6 shows that this strategy is not perceived to be particularly useful to the courts. Noneof the mean scores exceeded 2.56. The court administrators gave this strategy a relativelylow score (2.55), possibly indicating that the courts view such activities as unwarrantedand perhaps a threat to their credibility.

Emphasizing Judicial Independence

Because the judiciary is a separate branch of government, it holds a special status thatagencies do not have. It is possible that emphasizing the importance of judicial indepen-dence may strike a chord in elected officials and induce them to meet judicial budgetarydemands. Table 8 reveals that stressing the importance of an independent judiciary wasconsidered moderately useful by court administrators (3.12) but less useful by executiveand legislative analysts (2.76 for both). The higher mean score for court administrators isgenerally not surprising, given that associations such as the American Bar Associationand American Judicature Society42 have called attention to a political crisis arising fromthe courts’ being attacked by the other branches of government. The perception of lowerimportance of stressing the judiciary’s independence by the other branches could, how-ever, indicate that a respect for the courts’ independence by the other branches alreadyexists. For instance, legislative and executive officers may feel this strategy is unimportantgiven that they already respect the courts as a branch.

Increasing Court Collections

Finally, it is possible that courts could seek to relieve fiscal pressure by increasing courtfees and fines. Relying on this method of funding has come under criticism because raisingfees makes it difficult for lower-income citizens to gain access to the courts.43 Relying on


42. American Bar Association, An Independent Judiciary: Report of the ABA Committee on Separa-tion of Powers and Judicial Independence (Washington, D.C.: American Bar Association, 1997); AmericanJudicature Society, “Editorial: Strengthening the Court-Legislature Relationship,” Judicature 81, no. 3(Nov./Dec. 1997): 96.

43. Alan T. Dimond, “Judicial Funding: A Vital Link,” Florida Bar Journal 67, no. 4 (1993): 8(2).

fines also creates the potential for biasing court and legislative decisions. Legislaturesmight limit punishments to fines instead of jail time in order to gain revenue, and judgesmight be inclined to impose the maximum fine in all cases in order to ensure funding fortheir courts.44

We asked two questions along these lines: do courts lobby the governor for fine/fee in-creases, and do courts emphasize fines/fees over jail as strategies? As to lobbying the gov-ernor and legislature to support increases in fees and fines, Table 8 shows that therespondents across the board did not find this strategy to be particularly useful. Empha-sizing fees/fines instead of jail sentences was also rated as being unimportant by eachgroup of respondents. There was no statistical difference among the groups in responsesto these questions. The mean scores for these questions indicate that budgetary concernsare unlikely to affect either citizen access to the courts or court sentencing. Increasingfines and fees does not appear to play a significant role as a judicial budgeting strategy.

DISCUSSION OF RESULTS

What do the results on budget strategies tell us about the politics of state court budgeting?At first glance, each of the respondent groups paints a picture of a judiciary trying to re-main “above politics” when dealing with budgetary issues. This is most apparent in thehigh scores given to fiscally prudent strategies. The courts seem to place a high value onsubmitting realistic funding requests and providing documentation supporting theirneeds. It is likely that engaging in this type of behavior affords the judiciary credibility and


TABLE 8Actor Perceptions of Other Court Strategies



Courts StressImportance of JudicialIndependence 3.12 (41) 2.76 (38) 2.76 (45)

Lobby Governor and/orLegislature to IncreaseFines/Fees 2.58 (40) 2.53 (38) 2.71 (42)

Courts Emphasize Fines over Jailwhen Sentencing 1.38 (40) 1.53 (36) 1.39 (33)

44. Jonathan P. Nace, “The Revenue Agent Role of State Courts: Implications for Administration andAdjudication,” Judicature 76, no. 4 (Dec. 1992/Jan. 1993): 195–200.

wins it respect from officials in the other two branches of government. Such an assertion issupported by the importance placed upon these strategies by the executive and legislativeofficers.

Further evidence that the courts in the states are attempting to behave in a nonpoliticalfashion during the budgetary process can be found in the low scores assigned to severalstrategies. Strategies that might be used by political opportunists to gain more resources orflex their political muscle do not appear to be popular as court strategies. These includethreatening to sue or issue writs of mandamus, increasing self-generated revenues, with-holding budgetary documentation, appealing to the public, distributing resources to keylegislative districts, and playing budgetary shell games.The low scores given to these strate-gies indicate that the courts are unwilling to participate heavily in activities that coulddamage their credibility as the nonpolitical branch of government. It is also possible, how-ever, that the low scores for these strategies indicate that they either do not work well whenutilized or are seldom attempted because the other two branches of government wieldmuch stronger budgetary powers that can be used to retaliate against such court actions.

It is interesting to note that each of the three strategies where the mean scores for bothexecutive and legislative officers were higher than the mean scores for court administra-tors (lawsuits or threats of lawsuits, withholding supporting documentation, and distribut-ing resources to key legislative districts) fall into this category of “politically opportune”strategies. The higher scores given by the officials in the other two branches could indicatethat the judicial branch is more involved in using these strategies than it cares to admit.However, even if court administrators had scored these strategies at the same levels theexecutive and legislative officials did, the strategies would still rank low in usefulnessacross the range of strategies considered.

Despite the evidence that the courts appear to be attempting to remain “above poli-tics” during the budgetary process, the survey responses do indicate that state judiciariesuse strategies that have a more political tone. The most important of these strategies islobbying by court officials. All of the respondent groups rated several lobbying strategiesas being at least moderately useful at helping the courts acquire needed funding. In fact,four of the five strategies rated the highest by court administrators are lobbying activities(see Table 9). The maintenance of informal contacts with legislative officials and the lob-bying efforts of chief justices and court administrators appear to be the most effective lob-bying strategies for the courts. It is likely that the prestige afforded to chief justices andthe skill of judicial staff are largely responsible for the effectiveness of these strategies.

Another “more political” strategy that was found to be moderately useful to the courtsis that of mobilizing political allies. The courts, however, do not appear to be using thisstrategy as effectively and/or vigorously as they could. In several states, no groups lobbiedon behalf of the courts’ budget. In many other states, few groups outside the formal courtcommunity participated in lobbying on behalf of the courts. This indicates that the courtsare not overly enthusiastic about entering the political arena to attract potential allies tosupport them. Doing so might cause them to lose credibility and could put them in the po-sition of “owing” supporters for their help.


Looking closely at the data also reveals several differences of opinion about the courts’budget strategies. Court administrators typically scored strategies higher than executiveand legislative officers. The average score across all strategies posted by court administra-tors was 2.92, whereas the averages for executive and legislative officers were 2.68 and2.64 respectively. Court administrators registered the highest score for 16 of the 27 strate-gies rated (59.3 percent). Additionally, Table 9 shows that a respectable amount of vari-ance exists between the court administrators and the other respondents regarding theirtop-rated strategies. For four of their top five strategies, court administrators recordedscores that were significantly higher than the scores from at least one of the other respon-dent groups. Since the courts rely on the executive and legislative branches for their ap-propriations, these findings are quite significant. The courts’ perceptions concerning theusefulness of many of the budgeting strategies they employ appear to be too optimistic. Itis also possible that court administrators have an inflated view of their effectiveness atcarrying out these strategies, believing that they are doing an exceptional job of imple-menting the strategies when in fact they may not be performing as well as, perhaps, agency


TABLE 9Top Five Strategies Rated by Each Respondent Group

Court Executive LegislativeRank Administrators Officer Officer

1 Provide Supporting Provide Supporting Provide SupportingDocumentation Documentation Documentation

4.41 4.40 4.202 Maintain Informal Contacts Submit Realistic Maintain Informal

with Legislators Requests Contacts with Legislators4.37b 4.18 3.82

3 Court Administrator Appears Maintain Informal Chief Justice Lobbiesbefore the Legislative Contacts with Governor/IndividualCommittees Legislators Legislators

4.27b 3.74 3.704 Capitalize on Personal Court Administrator Submit Realistic

Relationships between Court Appears before the RequestsOfficials and Legislators Legislative Committees

4.10b 3.72 3.585 Chief Justice Lobbies Become More Court Administrator

Governor/Individual Efficient Appears before theLegislators Legislative Committees

4.07a 3.64 3.55

aOpinion is significantly different from that of executive officers at .05 level or better.bOpinion is significantly different from those of both legislative and executive officers at .05 level or better.

officials. Court officials might therefore want to reassess their effectiveness at implement-ing budgetary strategies and the importance they assign to the various strategies they use.Strategies to which they might pay particular attention include lobbying activities and mo-bilizing allies.

Finally, the results of this study allow us to identify a number of strategies that statecourts can follow to help them acquire needed funding. If one assumes that some of themore political strategies received low scores from the respondents because they areunderutilized, then state courts may want to pursue some of these strategies to assess theirpotential to improve judicial funding. The courts, however, should be cautious in followingthis suggestion, because doing so may undermine their credibility with the other branchesof government. Additionally, doing so would be a mistake if these strategies received lowscores because they are not useful when employed.

Strategies that are likely to prove more effective at improving court funding includebehaving in a more acquisitive manner, improving the lobbying skills of court officials, anddoing more to mobilize allies. The data show that acquisitive behavior leads to larger bud-get increases. If court officials can find ways to justify and document requests for addi-tional money, then they may be able to increase their level of acquisitiveness withoutdamaging the credibility of the judicial branch. Because providing supporting documenta-tion was scored the highest among the strategies studied by all three respondent groups,combining this strategy with greater acquisitiveness could yield substantial dividends forthe courts. This observation agrees with the earlier findings of Baar45 that if court officialswould provide more justification for their needs and ask for more money, then they wouldlikely receive larger appropriations.

Receiving training in lobbying techniques is another way in which court officials couldwork to increase judicial appropriations. Most lobbying strategies were scored relativelyhigh by each respondent group. Once again, however, court administrators tended to ratelobbying strategies higher than the executive and legislative officers. If the difference be-tween the scores is the result of a misperception on the part of court administrators con-cerning the quality of their lobbying skills, then working to improve these skills couldprove useful in the budgetary process.

Lastly, seeking the support of allies, including those outside of the law profession, couldhelp to increase court resources. Currently, the courts do not attract many supporters fromoutside of the legal or court community. Potential allies that appear to be underutilized bythe courts include child advocates, business groups, law enforcement groups, citizens’groups, and women’s groups opposed to domestic violence and “deadbeat dads.” Coali-tions of groups of varied backgrounds could contribute to the success of attempts to im-prove court funding. The courts, however, must be careful to ensure that building suchcoalitions does not undermine judicial credibility.

This study is the first effort to identify and assess court budgeting strategies in thestates. As such, it provides information to court administrators that can be used to en-


45. Baar, Separate but Subservient, 56.

hance their performance during the budgetary process. Future research should focus ondetermining the conditions under which the various strategies work best and uncoveringmore detailed information concerning the decision processes of key actors involved in ju-dicial budgeting. Elite interviews in several representative states might prove useful in thisregard.

NOTE

The authors would like to thank the University of Oklahoma and Roanoke College for providing internalgrants to fund the research for this article. The authors would also like to thank Wes Clarke and the anon-ymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.


state court strategies and politics during the appropriations process

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