Research Statement of Amy Semet
Executive Summary
My research focuses broadly on the institutional development of the American administrative state
and in applying quantitative techniques to the study of legal issues. My work is interdisciplinary,
incorporating elements from law, political science, statistics and history. Thematically, I am
interested in studying how political actors influence institutional structure and agency
decisionmaking. I also have an interest in combining my interest in administrative law with my
background in intellectual property law. Specifically, using my administrative law background, I
hope to study the institutional structure of the patent law system so that I may analyze whether an
alternative institutional structure could better accomplish the goals set by intellectual property law
statutes. I also seek to explore topics relating to the intersection of statutory interpretation and
administrative law as well as to how the American public forms its opinion on constitutional issues
and controversies. While many of these topics have been studied by legal scholars from a doctrinal
perspective, only recently have academics started to study these issues in an interdisciplinary way
by applying quantitative skills and historical analysis to enrich understanding.
I plan to work on several projects. First, I would spend some time adding more normative content
to my dissertation on administrative adjudication in preparation for sending at least three articles to
law reviews. Second, I would like to expand on my work on administrative agencies by studying
politicization in other administrative agencies or by analyzing other facets of administrative
adjudication using the rich databases I created as part of my dissertation work. Further, I would like
to write an article with a focus on empirically studying other legal issues, such as intellectual
property, and in particular, how regulation affects innovation law. Finally, I will be working this
year at Princeton University on several projects dealing with campaign finance and judicial
elections.
Dissertation
My doctoral dissertation explores the extent to which political actors influence the adjudicatory
structure and decisions of independent administrative agencies. In the first part of my dissertation, I
study the institutional development of the adjudicatory apparatus of the National Labor Relations
Board (“NLRB”). Using historical material from the agency archives, I analyze how political actors
influenced the formation of the NLRB’s unique adjudicatory system. I then study how institutional
changes made in the late 1940s impacted the way in which the NLRB made decisions. At the
bequest of conservative Congress members, the Taft Hartley Act of 1947 changed the structure of
the NLRB by splitting up its power base. I examine cases before and after the change in order to try
to isolate what impact this highly touted institutional change actually had on outcomes. In the
second part of the project, I statistically analyze the NLRB’s unfair labor practice decisions from
the Clinton and Bush presidencies. Combined with information from two datasets I obtained from
the agency that have been under-exploited by scholars, I coded the outcome and legal issues
involved (in addition to other case-specific information) of almost 3,000 agency decisions spanning
sixteen years. I then explore the extent to which Board member ideology impacted whether the
Board will rule for or against the labor party. Applying theories used primarily in the study of the
federal courts, I look at how different partisan configurations of the panel hearing the case
influenced how the Board ruled. I find that there are panel effects and that the random choice of a
Democratic majority panel over a Republican one influences the propensity of the NLRB to rule in
favor of labor. This study contributes not only to further knowledge on how agencies make
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decisions, but it also is one of the few studies that merges legal scholarship and quantitative analysis
to test empirically the extent to which partisanship motivates the decisions of so-called
“independent” administrative agencies.
In subsequent chapters of the dissertation, I expand the analysis further and examine how the
regional appellate courts examine NLRB decisionmaking. In another section, I examine statutory
interpretation from the inside to see exactly how the NLRB interprets statutes and what statutory
canons it employs in making its decisions, a field that has been underexploited by researchers. In
future work, I hope to explore these issues with respect to other agencies with different institutional
configurations.
The findings of my dissertation, I believe, will contribute to greater understanding on how
“independent” agencies operate in practice. Independent agencies, charged to use their expertise to
make decisions that are somewhat divorced from changes in the political landscape, may not always
perform as theorized. Understanding the circumstances by which political actors can influence the
adjudicatory decisions of administrative agencies will lend to existing knowledge of the
administrative state and contribute to enriched understanding of agency oversight. Moreover, the
unique datasets I compiled from my own reading of agency cases provides a ready resource for
future researchers to use to study the empirics of administrative decision-making.
Other Work: Public Opinion on Constitutional Issues
In addition to studying topics in administrative law, I also have examined the role that public
opinion plays in constitutional issues and controversies. I co-authored an article with Nathaniel
Persily and Stephen Ansolabehere on the impact that public opinion had – and still has – in shaping
feelings about the Supreme Court’s seminal decision in Bush v. Gore. The article also examines
how public opinion on Bush v. Gore continues to influence the public’s approval of and confidence
in the Court. This peer-reviewed article was published in a book by Cambridge University Press
and edited by R. Michael Alvarez and Bernard Grofman.
I also am currently working on two other projects dealing with public opinion on constitutional
issues and controversies. In one article that I previously presented at the Conference for Empirical
Legal Studies, Stephen Ansolabehere and I look at the impact that public opinion has in shaping the
public’s perception of gun control rights and the Second Amendment more generally. In another
article, Nathaniel Persily, Stephen Ansolabehere and I examine the impact that public opinion has in
shaping the public’s differing perceptions of Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Elena Kagan at
the time of their confirmation to the Supreme Court. Despite the fact that both nominees are
Democrats, we found that the demographic basis of each justice’s support was very different, with
support for each nominee varying depending on the survey respondent’s race, gender and ideology.
Further, during my postdoc at the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton, I will be
working on several projects with Brandice Canes-Wrone and others. Specifically, I will be working
on two to three papers dealing with how interest groups and campaign contributions influence
judicial elections.
Future Projects
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During my postdoc time at Princeton, in addition to work on judicial elections, I plan on working on
a few main projects. First, I would like to expand on the work I did for my dissertation by applying
the analysis I did for the NLRB to other agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency
(“EPA”), the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”), the Federal Communications Commission
(“FCC”) and the Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”). In particular, I hope to use the agency
datasets I compiled to further empirically analyze the work of administrative agencies and I hope to
add to this line of work by studying other empirical issues in administration law beyond just
adjudication. After doing an analysis of a few more agencies, I would then seek to publish my work
as a series of law review articles or perhaps a book on the way in which politicization operates in
administrative adjudications. I also intend to expand my research agenda to explore other issues in
law where statistically-oriented analysis will contribute to greater understanding of how the law
operates in practice. For instance, I would like to start work on some of the other projects I mention
later in this statement concerning intellectual property and statutory interpretation.
Administrative/Constitutional Law
As a first order project, I want to add more normative content to my work by discussing in more
depth the policy recommendations that could flow from my empirical findings. I would also like to
devote a section or perhaps even a stand-alone article discussing whether my empirical findings
correspond with constitutional principles like separation of powers and checks and balances. In
other words, does what I find empirically accord with what the Constitution and the Framers
envisioned for the administrative state? By addressing these questions, I will offer a better
theoretical frame for my work.
I would then aspire to study other agencies and other issues in administrative adjudication using the
many data-analysis skills I acquired during my doctoral studies. The datasets I created with
assistance from information provided by the NLRB are a rich source of information about how
agencies makes decisions. The two datasets I obtained from the NLRB, for instance, contain a
plethora of information from 1964 to the present relating to virtually every aspect of the Board’s
work. I supplemented the agency’s dataset by coding thousands of agency decisions. In the future,
I hope to exploit these datasets to analyze other issues, such as the impact that regionalism has in
impacting case outcomes at the lower court level. For instance, do the decisions of the NLRB vary
by region, and if so how? Looking at how agencies make decisions at the regional level is an issue
not often studied by scholars simply because until recently acquiring the information was a feat in
itself. However, in recent years, the federal government has made a concerted effort to make
information more widely available online. Indeed, there is a wealth of information available that
would allow one to study how decision-making occurs at all levels – the regional intake level, the
Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) level, the Board level and the level of higher federal courts
reviewing NLRB decisions. I hope to explore the extent to which political actors influence the
NLRB at all its levels. For instance, the NLRB has a unique institutional configuration with power
divided between the Board and the General Counsel. No scholar has systematically studied how
political actors influence agency General Counsels. Information I obtained from the agency,
however, would allow me to do such analysis. For instance, I would be able to test whether
political actors influence General Counsels in their propensity to petition for discretionary
injunctive relief. Similarly, datasets I obtained from the Environmental Protection Agency would
allow me to examine issues relating to regionalism as well as how ideology motivates decisionmaking at the agency’s many differing levels.
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Moreover, in addition to studying other adjudicatory issues at the NLRB, I also hope to study other
agencies that do most of their work through adjudication in preparation for either writing a book on
administrative adjudication or perhaps embarking on a comparative study. As an academic, I would
spend time empirically analyzing the adjudicatory decisions of regulatory agencies dealing with
competition, telecommunications and intellectual property law, namely the EPA, FTC, FCC and
PTO. By studying a diverse series of subjects – labor, environmental law, competition policy,
telecommunications and patent law – I hope to be able to make some comparative statements on
how politicization impacts agencies depending on the subject matter they are dealing with. With the
agencies now providing the data and with social scientists having the skills, the possibilities are
limitless for empirically studying the administrative state. Only by studying politicization at a few
administrative agencies can we begin to make any assessment on how institutional configurations
can impact outcomes. For instance, how does institutional configuration impact the ability of the
legislative, executive or judiciary in impacting outcomes? Do agencies deciding cases on a regional
basis offer more opportunity for legislators to impact outcomes than agencies that make decisions
using a streamlined institutional configuration housed in Washington D.C.? Studying a diverse
group of agencies can help us begin to understand the answers to these questions as well as assist us
in proposing ways to reform the system if the results do not comport with what we desire in a
separation of powers system.
Intellectual Property Law
Using my quantitative skills, I would also like to undertake an analysis of the institutional structure
of intellectual property law decision-making, especially with respect to the patent law system of
which I am the most familiar. Congress set up a specialized appeals court, the Federal Circuit, to
handle all patent law appeals. Did this change in structure impact how courts rule on patent law
cases? There are also some district courts that hear a disproportionate number of patent law cases.
For instance, the Northern District of California or the District of Delaware have an entrenched
history of patent law jurisprudence. Holding other factors constant, do judges from these districts
decide cases differently from judges in districts hearing few patent cases? The answers to such
questions would lend insight into whether reform of the patent law system is necessary. Some have
proposed that there be a specialized district-level court for the patent law system, analogous to that
which exists at the appellate level in the Federal Circuit. Before such a radical change can be made,
however, we need to understand the impact that specialized courts have had in patent law and assess
whether the strengths outweigh the weaknesses. Toward this end, we can exploit the many
quantitative tools we have at our disposal to begin to answer some of these questions. Indeed, the
analysis need not be limited just to courts; any examination of patent law reform should also
consider administrative machinery. Are courts the best vehicle for deciding patent law cases or
should the administrative machinery of the PTO be reformed to better respond to patent law
challenges? Moreover, such an analysis need not be limited just to patent law. One could similarly
address reform of the system of deciding trademark, copyright and other innovation law disputes.
As such, should the jurisdiction of the Federal Circuit be expanded to cover other issues in
intellectual property law beyond patent litigation? Should the administrative system dealing with
these issues be reformed? We can only answer these normative questions if we know the
underlying empirics of how specialized courts have operated in the past with respect to intellectual
property law issues.
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Statutory Interpretation
I also hope to study empirical topics dealing with statutory interpretation, particularly statutory
interpretation done by the agencies themselves. For instance, for my dissertation, I compiled a
dataset of NLRB decisions, and I hope to further enhance this dataset by coding decisions on how
the NLRB interprets statutes in other cases and time periods. I could then explore empirically the
statutory canons that agencies like the NLRB actually use in practice. I could also study the
circumstances under which upper level courts overrule agencies with respect to statutory
interpretation. For instance, do upper level courts apply different statutory canons than the agency
did? Scholars are just beginning to scratch the surface with respect to the empirical analysis of
statutory interpretation, so there is much scholars can do to study statutory interpretation not only by
agencies, but by the federal courts as well, with respect to various issues, such as health, securities
or intellectual property law, among other issues. In particular, I would also like to devote time to
understanding the constitutional issues raised by statutory interpretation issues. For instance, are
there certain canons or ways of interpreting statutes that accord more with the Constitution
envisions? Moreover, as an empirical matter, are courts and agencies interpreting statutes in a way
that accords with constitutional principles such as checks and balances and separation of powers?
Conclusion
In all, the type of work I have done for my dissertation on agency institutional structure and
decisionmaking can be applied to study to study a host of other legal institutional structures, in the
administrative state and beyond. Moreover, the quantitative training I received as part of my
doctoral studies provides me with a useful skill set that I can apply to study other legal issues
empirically.
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