Strategic Plaintiffs and Ideological Judges in Telecommunications Litigation
研究司法意识形态如何影响电信监管案件的筛选与结果，发现企业更可能在法院与监管机构意识形态分歧时提起诉讼，且法官投票符合意识形态预期。
This article examines the effect of judicial ideology on the selection and outcome of telecommunications regulatory cases. Using a dataset of Federal Communications Commission orders and trials from 1990 to 1995, this article shows that changes in the makeup of the bench of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affects not only who wins cases, but also the cases selected for litigation. Firms are more likely to bring cases when the agency decisions are ideologically distant from the bench than when the two actors are ideologically close. Randomly selected judges vote ideologically as the firms' actions predict they will, with Republican judges overturning Democratic agency decisions, and vice versa. Finally, the article provides initial evidence that regulatory uncertainty may lead to more litigation.