The Supreme Court has been responsible for thousands of landmark decisions throughout history that have influenced U.S. policy. For each of these cases, the justices have been involved in a process of decision-making that allows them to rule on the legal disputes presented to the Court. The majority decision produced by the Court then outlines binding legal precedent that influences the rest of the country. The large impact of this process makes it important to attempt to understand. Thankfully, the decision-making process is a subject that has been heavily studied, which has led to the creation of many models and concepts used to comprehend the way that justices make their choices. This paper will add to the existing work on Supreme Court decision making by focusing on the bargaining process between justices, specifically noting how it influences opinion writing. By comparing three important decision-making models, I will argue why the strategic model prevails as the most sound for understanding the way that justices interact and make decisions. Using this model, I will then introduce the idea of bargaining and explore how it impacts the opinion-writing process. Assuming that it is the goal of the justices to act strategically and to have the majority decision reflect their policy preferences, I theorize that justices use bargaining to create their favorable policy outcomes during the opinion-writing process by using strategies like bargaining statements to push for their policy preferences.

Dr. Hazelton is an inspiring professor who is extremely passionate about the subjects she teaches, including judicial politics. She works to challenge her students academically, and pushes us all to think critically about her course material. Dr. Hazelton is also incredibly caring and helpful, and has served as an important resource for me over the past four years at SLU. As my advisor in the Political Science Department, her advice and support has been invaluable to both my journey as a student and decision to attend law school in the fall.