Institutional threats shape judicial policy.
Mark 18 [Alyx; Ph.D. in Political Science from George Washington University and Professor at Wesleyan University specializing in government; 2018; “Blurring Institutional Boundaries: JUDGES’ PERCEPTIONS OF THREATS TO JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE”; Legislative Studies Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 1; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/695743; بلال]
Quite distinctly, legislation may also include institutional threats, or attacks by legislators that seek to limit the formal or institutional authority of the courts, which represent a more direct challenge to the judiciary (Toma 1991; Clark 2011). In other words, institutional threats are often characterized by the legislative attempt to limit the general independence or future discretion afforded to the judiciary, either broadly or in a more specific area of the law. Toma (1991) and Rosenberg (1992) helpfully catalog a variety of tools that Congress has at its disposal to sanction the judiciary, which include tactics like jurisdiction stripping (a common tool), budget slashing, the imposition of term limits, and alterations in the size of the bench. Additionally, Congress often issues vague “warnings” to the judiciary about its behavior in pending cases. Some work suggests that reliance on these tools is cyclical, with Congresses varying in their willingness to engage in court-curbing behavior (Nagel 1964).3 There is also some evidence to suggest that judicial behavior is indeed influenced by these attacks (Clark 2009; Segal, Westerland, and Lindquist 2011).