If You Insist… Identity and Interim Appointments on Elected State Supreme Courts

What the paper says

State supreme courts, long White and male, are increasingly diverse in recent years. As a result, a growing literature explores how various minority groups reach the bench. Interim appointments, occurring when governors in electoral states appoint someone to fill a midterm vacancy, are largely absent from this literature. This is problematic because, in states utilizing judicial elections, nearly half of all jurists initially receive an interim appointment. This subsequently conveys an incumbency advantage and may bypass women’s and racial minorities’ lower propensity to seek and secure office. Indeed, interim appointments are crucial to court diversification. Since appointment predictors vary by identity, we explore the path members of several groups take to the bench. We do so by drawing on a dataset of every jurist joining electoral state supreme courts from 1980 to 2023. We argue non-traditional jurists’ interim appointments are conditional on the governor’s political affiliation, institutional constraints, and the broader political context. We find Democrats are generally more likely to appoint non-traditional jurists, although both institutional and political factors are important moderators. Additionally, appointment predictors vary by identity group. Our findings underscore the nuanced ways state supreme courts become more diverse and the conditions under which governors appoint non-traditional jurists to the bench.