The Role Of The Solicitor General

This book examines whether and how the Office of the Solicitor General influences the United States Supreme Court. Combining archival data with recent innovations in the areas of matching and causal inference, the book finds that the Solicitor General influences every aspect of the Court's decision making process.

A frequently overlooked institution of American politics, the Office of the Solicitor General is responsible for all litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the executive branch. In carrying out this task, the solicitor general is also an advisor to the justices and a gatekeeper, controlling a large portion of litigation that reaches the Court's docket. Rebecca Salokar studies this office and shows that, with the increased politicization of the Justice Department, the work of the nation's lawyer is an integral component of executive policy-making. Paying particular attention to the selection of solicitors general and the political and legal environment in which they functioned, Salokar analyzes all Supreme Court cases in which the government was a participant from 1959 through 1986. Her interviews with several former solicitors general and members of their staffs provide contextual examples to support the statistical analyses. She demonstrates that this office can and does shape policy questions for the United States. While the relationship between the judicial and executive branches has been defined traditionally through the nomination of justices to the Court, Salokar reveals that another, more frequently used, link between the two branches exists in the Office of the Solicitor General. Author note: Rebecca Mae Salokar is Associate Professor of Political Science at Florida International University.

Behind every government there is an impressive team of hard-working lawyers. In Australia, the Solicitor-General leads that team. A former Attorney-General once said, 'The Solicitor-General is next to the High Court and God.' And yet the role of government lawyers in Australia, and specifically the Solicitor-General as the most senior of government lawyers, is under-theorised and under-studied. The Role of the Solicitor-General: Negotiating Law, Politics and the Public Interest goes behind the scenes of government – drawing from interviews with over 45 government and judicial officials – to uncover the history, theory and practice of the Australian Solicitor-General. The analysis reveals a role that is of fundamental constitutional importance to ensuring both the legality and the integrity of government action, thus contributing to the achievement of rule-of-law ideals. The Solicitor-General also works to defend government action and prosecute government policies in the court, and thus performs an important role as messenger between the political and judicial branches of government. But the Solicitor-General's position, as both an internal integrity check on government and an external warrior for government, gives rise to competing pressures: between the law, politics and the public interest. The office of the Solicitor-General in Australia has evolved many characteristics across the almost two centuries of its history in an attempt to navigate these tensions. These pressures are not unique to the Australian context. The understanding of the Australian position provided by this book is informed by, and will inform, comparative analysis of the role of government lawyers across the world.

At the intersection of law and politics stands the U.S. Solicitor General. Although even the informed public rarely thinks of the solicitor general in relation to the major issues that have challenged American society, this office actually has considerable control over the cases the Supreme Court addresses. To bring the Office of Solicitor General (OSG) out of the shadows and into the clear light of public attention, Between Law and Politics looks at three hotly contested policy areas—race, gender, and reproductive rights—to see how the office balances the goals of the president, Congress, and the Supreme Court. The OSG is charged with helping the Supreme Court build a coherent doctrine and imposing some stability on the law. At the same time, the solicitor general is a presidential appointee. Deciding which cases to appeal, arguing those cases before the Supreme Court, and filing friendofthecourt briefs means the solicitor general plays an important role in furthering the policy objections of the current administration. Therein lies the tension between law and politics that is at the heart of the calculations the solicitor general makes on a daily basis. Using interviews with solicitors general and their staffs, members of the Department of Justice, and others, and analyzing Supreme Court cases beginning with the Truman administration, Richard Pacelle shows how the OSG balances the competing forces in its environment. His analysis is undergirded by aggregate analysis of the data gathered. This detailed and systematic study will be of great interest to those who study the Supreme Court, the presidency, and public policy. It is unique in its close examination of a number of particular areas of law and the strength and persuasiveness of its analysis of the competing constituencies that face the Office of the Solicitor General. The timeliness and controversial nature of the policy areas Pacelle examines give the book further importance to students of American politics.

This document gives an overview of the work of the Ministry in fulfilling its responsibilities for policing, corrections and security and strengthening the policing, corrections and security systems. The report gives an overview of the role of the Ministry and its resource allocations and the role and activities of the Secretariat, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Correctional Service of Canada, the National Parole Board, and the correctional investigator.

Of all the nation's public officials, the Solicitor General is the only one required by statute to be "learned in the law." Although he serves in the Department of Justice, he also has permanent chambers in the Supreme Court. The fact that he keeps offices at these two distinct institutions underscores his special role.