Ideological Values and the Votes of U.S. Supreme Court Justices Revisited

Published in 1995. Journal of Politics 57 (3): 812-823. (Revised version of a paper delivered at the 1994 annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association.)

Jeffrey A. Segal
Lee Epstein
Harold J. Spaeth
Charles Cameron

Segal and Cover (1989) analyzed the content of newspaper editorials to devise measures of the ideological values of the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. Because their measures came from sources independent of the judicial vote, scholars have widely adopted them. This note updates, backdates, and extends the Segal and Cover research by adding the two Bush appointees and the seven Roosevelt and four Truman nominees whose service extended beyond the start of the Vinson Court. While we find that the ideological values of the Eisenhower through Bush appointees correlate strongly with votes cast in economic and civil liberties cases, the results are less robust for justices appointed by Roosevelt and Truman.

Click here for the article (.pdf).
Click here for the conference paper (.pdf).
Updated scores are available here (Jeff Segal's website)