Judicial review and the separation of powers in state constitutional litigation challenging the adequacy of education spending: Complementary analyses and a proposed adjudicatory model.

摘要

This study focused on state constitutional litigation challenging the adequacy of education spending. Much legal and educational research has been directed at determining the factors that influence judicial decision making in this form of litigation. Limited numbers of empirical studies have sought to analyze the existing cases using one or more quantitative methodologies, but none have included separation of powers text in the state constitution as a legal variable. Similarly, much normative legal and policy scholarship has evaluated existing adjudicatory approaches and has proposed alternate adjudicatory models, and much of this scholarship has considered separation of powers to be an important concern, but none these studies have examined the textual differences among state constitutions relating to separation of powers.;Understanding that separation of powers concerns have surfaced in nearly every education finance adequacy case, this study sought to examine the nature of the courts’ use or rejection of these principles in deciding whether to engage in judicial review. Exploratory analysis yielded research questions seeking to determine first, whether differences in separation of powers text in state constitutions are associated with differences in judicial decisions on separation of powers questions in state highest courts; second, whether patterns of reasoning among state highest court judicial decisions suggest that other legal factors are associated with differences in judicial decisions; and finally, whether and to what extent any such patterns of reasoning justify adjudicatory reforms.;These questions were analyzed using complementary methods. These analyses yielded no evidence indicating that differences in separation of powers text in state constitutions are associated with differences in judicial decisions. Rather, patterns of reasoning among the state highest courts cases indicated that differences in judicial conceptions of education rights and duties are closely associated with differences in judicial decisions; however, these differences were unstable across different stages of litigation, leading to the conclusion that adjudicatory approaches and conceptions of education rights become disconnected as a case progresses from justiciability through remediation. Based on the results of these complementary analyses, this study proposed an adjudicatory model for education finance litigation based on judicial conceptions of education’s constitutional status.