In this article, we consider the effects of filibuster change on judicial appointments, judicial voting, and opinion drafting. The filibuster effectively empowers a minority of 41 senators by requiring 60 votes to break off debate on a nomination. We develop a game‐theoretic model that explains that the elimination of the filibuster changed the relevant “pivotal senator,” whose support was necessary to secure a nomination. Freed of the power of the minority of senators, presidents ought to exercise freer rein in naming judicial nominees closer to their preferred ideology. Moreover, sitting judges who seek elevation to a higher court ought to alter their “signal” that they would be good candidates to match the preferences of the newly relevant pivotal senator. To test our hypotheses empirically, we use the 2013 elimination of the filibuster in the U.S. Senate for lower federal court judicial nominations as an exogenous shock. We explore how the change in the filibuster rule affected the characteristics of judges President Obama nominated to the federal courts. We find statistically significant shifts in the background characteristics of judges confirmed to the federal courts of appeals after the elimination of the filibuster. Compared to the earlier Obama appointees, these judges were more likely to be female, slightly younger, and to have previously clerked for a liberal judges, but less likely to be nonwhite. In addition, we find that there was a statistically significant increase in the confirmation of judges with liberal ideologies, as measured by their common space campaign finance scores. These liberal ideologies mapped onto actual votes in politically charged cases. Compared to Obama judges confirmed before the rule change, these judges were more likely to cast pro‐choice votes in abortion cases and anti‐death penalty votes in death penalty cases. We also find evidence that the elimination of the filibuster had a polarizing effect on sitting federal district judges, especially those with a greater chance of promotion to the courts of appeals. Using computational content analysis, we find that after the change in the filibuster rule, Democratic judges were more likely to use politically charged words signaling their very liberal ideological positions in abortion opinions and Republican judges were more likely to use words signaling their conservative views. These findings are useful in assessing the desirability of restoring the judicial filibuster, as well in assessing the debate over the retention of the legislative filibuster.

中文翻译：

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裁员变革与司法任命

在本文中，我们将考虑更改提案对司法任命，司法投票和意见起草的影响。通过要求60票来中断关于提名的辩论，该阻挠者有效地增强了41位参议员的权力。我们开发了一种博弈论模型，该模型解释说，取消平庸主义者改变了相关的“枢密院参议员”，而参议员的支持对于确保提名至关重要。摆脱少数派参议员的权力，总统应该更加自由地任命更接近其首选意识形态的司法候选人。此外，寻求升格为高等法院的现任法官应改变其“信号”，以使其成为符合新相关枢轴参议员偏好的好人选。为了凭经验检验我们的假设，我们将2013年在美国参议院中废除纠缠不清的人用于降低联邦法院的司法提名，这是一种外在的冲击。我们探讨了阻挠规则的变化如何影响奥巴马总统提名联邦法院法官的特征。我们发现，消除骚扰者后，向联邦上诉法院确认的法官背景特征发生了统计上的重大变化。与较早的奥巴马任命相比，这些法官更可能是女性，年龄稍小，以前曾担任自由派法官，但不太可能是非白人。此外，我们发现具有自由意识形态的法官的确认在统计上有显着增加，这是通过他们共同的太空运动财务得分来衡量的。这些自由主义意识形态在政治指控的案件中映射到实际选票上。与在规则变更之前确认的奥巴马法官相比，这些法官更有可能在堕胎案件中投赞成票，而在死刑案件中投反死刑票。我们还发现有证据表明，消除纠缠不清的行为对在任的联邦地方法院法官，特别是那些更有机会晋升至上诉法院的法官，产生了两极分化的影响。通过计算内容分析，我们发现，在改变原则之后，民主党法官更有可能使用带有政治色彩的词语来表达其在堕胎意见中非常自由的意识形态立场，而共和党法官则更有可能使用词语来表达其保守观点。