Plugging the Pipe? Evaluating the (Null) Effects of Leaks on Supreme Court Legitimacy

Occasionally, information about the inner workings of the Supreme Court is leakedto the press by insiders--clerks, or even justices themselves. These leaks reliably stokecontroversy among commentators and academics alike who pontificate on the negativeeffect leaks have on the Court's institutional legitimacy. However, it is not immediatelyclear from existing theories whether populating the media environment with leakedinformation will affect public perceptions of the Court, let alone the direction of sucheffects. Indeed, some theories predict leaks should result in an increase in legitimacywhile others suggest a decrease. In this paper, we use an original survey combinedwith an original survey experiment to test the extent to which, if any, leaks influencelegitimacy ascribed to the Supreme Court. Analysis shows a tightly-estimated nulleffect of leaks on public views on the Court