In its dealings with the U.S. Supreme Court, the solicitor general’s office enjoys remarkable success. Previous accounts of the solicitor general advantage roundly explain the phenomenon as a function of the office being a source of reliable legal information to Supreme Court justices. I demonstrate, however, that macro-level analysis—the office’s overall winning percentage—misses an intricate dynamic between policy-minded justices and the executive agency. Examining every case between 1961 and 2007 in which the solicitor general’s office represented the United States before the Supreme Court, I demonstrate that “the solicitor general advantage” is present but contingent on justice-level ideological congruence. Justices who are ideologically opposed to the incumbent president treat the solicitor general’s office as an ordinary litigant, affording it no deferential treatment. Notably, adversarial voting—that is, voting behavior when faced with a political opponent—is heightened when the solicitor general’s office appears before the Court as petitioner, whereas ideological influences are nonexistent when the office appears as respondent.

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来自政治化酒吧的信号：作为美国最高法院直接诉讼当事人的司法部长

在与美国最高法院打交道时，总检察长办公室取得了非凡的成功。先前对律师总长优势的描述全面地解释了这种现象，因为该办公室是最高法院法官可靠法律信息来源的功能。然而，我证明，宏观层面的分析——办公室的整体胜率——忽略了具有政策意识的法官和执行机构之间的复杂动态。审查 1961 年至 2007 年期间检察长办公室在最高法院代表美国的每一个案件，我证明“检察长的优势”是存在的，但取决于司法层面的意识形态一致性。在意识形态上反对现任总统的法官将司法部长办公室视为普通诉讼人，不给予它任何恭敬的待遇。值得注意的是，当总检察长办公室作为请愿人出现在法院面前时，对抗性投票——即面对政治对手时的投票行为——会加剧，而当该办公室作为答辩人出现时，意识形态影响不存在。