Seeking Information

Abstract

The State of the Union represents an opportunity for the president to share policy goals with other political actors. Thus, the State of the Union can proxy how much information the Court has about executive preferences when receiving a case. We find that the less time a president devotes to a policy area, the more likely the Court is to issue a request for a brief in a case dealing with that issue area. This finding indicates that the Court is cognizant of presidential signals of policy preferences and actively seeks to supplement its understanding of the executive’s preferences.