Into the Words: Using Statutory Text to Explore the Impact of Federal Courts on State Policy Diffusion

I examine the impact federal courts have on state policy diusion through the use of computational text analysis. Using a dyadic framework, I model the impact courts have on the decision to adopt a policy and, if adopted, how much text to borrow directly from another state’s preexisting law. A court decision ruling a statute unconstitutional can generate up to a 47% relative reduction in the probability of adoption, and a ruling of constitutionality can generate a relative increase as high as 519% in the amount of borrowed text. These ndings shed light on how states learn from one another.

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