Fw: Roberts ideology

[Jeffrey Segal]

As some of you know, I've been measuring the ideology of Supreme Court
nominees from content analyses of newspaper editorials from the time of
nomination until the time of confirmation.  The scores range from -1 to +1,
with -1 representing the conservative end.  The preliminary score for
Roberts is -.80, which places him a bit more moderate than Rehnquist
(-.91), and about where Burger and Blackmun (-.77) were measured at the
time of their nominations.

Based on a standard regression analysis, the scores predict that Roberts
will vote liberally in 34.6% of civil liberties cases, a bit more
conservative than Kennedy and O'Connor, but not as conservative as Scalia,
Rehnquist, and Thomas.

Since the start of the Warren Court, the correlation between this
attitudinal measure and the justices' subsequent aggregate support for
civil liberties is .76.

Jeff

Jeffrey Segal
Distinguished Professor and Chair
Department of Political Science
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, NY 11794
phone 631-632-7662
fax 631-632-4116
jeffrey.segal at stonybrook.edu
http://www.sunysb.edu/polsci/jsegal/