Doctrinal and Strategic Influences of the Chief Justice the Decisional Significance of the Chief Justice

The office of the Chief Justice of the United States has received considerable renown but has been the subject of relatively little research. It is common to refer to the Chief as primus inter pares, but little attention has been paid to the relative significance of the primus as opposed to the pares. The office of the Chief Justice has been considered “second in national authority and prestige only to the president,” and is said to have “sweeping, if usually unstated, powers and significance.” Yet the Chief Justice has relatively little actual authority over the Associate Justices who serve contemporaneously, and the “fact that a chief justice must work his will with eight independent souls not chosen by him is a formidable barrier to his success.” Justice Frankfurter described the Supreme Court as an “institution in which every man is his own sovereign.” More colorfully, thenAssociate Justice Rehnquist referred to Associate Justices as being “as independent as hogs on ice.” Thus, the actual influence of the Chief