Paper: "Selecting an Author: Assigning the Majority Opinion on the U.S. Supreme Court" Co-authors: James F. Spriggs II of UC Davis with Paul Wahlbeck and Forrest Maltzman of The George Washington University, all assistant professors of political science. Date and time: Thursday, Sept. 3. 3:30 p.m. Who speaks for the U.S. Supreme Court by writing its majority opinions is determined not only by the justices' ideological agendas but also by the constraints each case presents, according to a study by Spriggs, Wahlbeck and Maltzman. Using retired justices' papers, the political scientists studied the 1,891 cases assigned by Chief Justice Warren Burger and the 310 assigned by associate justices between 1969 and 1985. Describing the chief justice as a "taskmaster with an agenda," the researchers write that he or she assigns opinions based on the court's calendar, the importance of a case, the expertise and workload of individual justices, the size of a winning coalition -- and policy preferences. Although the chief justice downplays ideological considerations as the "June crunch" approaches with the end of the term, he or she does make an extra effort to guard his or her ideological preferences on cases with political implications, the researchers conclude. Associate justices who assign majority opinions -- in cases where the chief justice is not on the majority side -- are unfettered by the court's institutional needs; they assign cases to a justice closely aligned to their own ideology or, more often, to themselves. However, in cases where the majority is small or the agreement is fragile, both the chief justice and associate justices are more likely to assign the opinion to an ideological moderate to better accommodate differing views and maintain the coalition.