ABSTRACT

Up to this point, we have examined the ways in which the federal courts influence and in many cases make public and social policy when they hand down their rulings. In the United States, each state also has its own separate and distinct court system. These state courts can also substantially influence policy with their decisions; however, their decisions are binding only on the particular state. Thus, state courts, much like state legislatures (see e.g., Karch 2007; Volden 2006), often serve as minilaboratories for policy change. As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis noted in a dissent, “It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country” ( New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann 1932). States, aided by state courts, can therefore craft policies which apply only to their states as well as serve as a type of laboratory where other states and outside actors can gauge the success of such policies or political strategies. State courts, like all courts, play an essential role in this laboratory function, and they are particularly powerful when they address issues that are constitutionally reserved to the states or can be addressed solely by examining state law.