Friday, June 12, 2009 4:15 PM
Keeping Score On Sotomayor
Updated at 6:06 p.m.
If confirmed for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor will be one of the most qualified justices -- though not the most qualified -- and likely as liberal as Ruth Bader Ginsburg. That's the hunch coming from Jeffrey Segal, a political science professor at Stony Brook University who combs newspaper editorials to rank justices on their perceived qualifications and ideology.
The ranking system, known as the Segal-Cover score (Albert Cover was Segal's original partner developing the system), evaluates justices dating back to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1937 nomination of Hugo Black. It uses a scale of 0 to 1: For qualifications, 0 is the least qualified and 1 is the most, and for ideology, 0 is the most conservative and 1 is the most liberal.
On the current court, Ginsburg ranks as the most liberal, with a score of 0.68. Antonin Scalia is the most conservative, at 0. And they tie for the most qualified, at 1 each. Segal analyzes editorials from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. The Journal was added starting with David Souter's nomination to compensate for the Los Angeles Times' drift leftward, Segal said. For Sotomayor, he started tracking editorials since the day after President Obama nominated her and will continue until the day the full Senate votes on her.
"She's going to fall as a moderate liberal," Segal predicts. "There will be evidence that she's not a doctrinaire. And she'll come out pretty high on the qualifications, but not at the very, very top."
How Sotomayor explains some controversial comments, especially her "wise Latina woman" remark, in the confirmation hearings will factor into her qualification score, Segal said, since editorialists will likely consider that in their analyses.
When asked about the bias the scores could reflect since they're based only on media reports, Segal said the inclusion of newspapers on both sides of the divide should ensure that they're an accurate representation of how justices are being perceived. He also said that the ideology ratings end up doing "an excellent job of predicting justices' overall liberalism or conservatism once they're on the Supreme Court." Statistically comparing justices' ideology score and voting behavior going back to the Warren court, Segal said there is a 0.79 "correlation coefficient." This means that you can predict the justices' overall voting behavior "fairly accurately simply by knowing their ideology," Segal said.
Segal and Northwestern law professor Lee Epstein, who collaborated on Advice And Consent, a 2005 book on the judicial appointment process, are working with Andrew Martin of Washington University in St. Louis on a project that will rank justices on the same criteria by analyzing thousands of blogs. How useful will this be considering the blogosphere's wide range from insightful to worthless?
"We'll find out," Segal said. "I wouldn't put as much faith into this as accurately measuring the qualifications or the ideology of Sotomayor as I would the editorial judgment we'll be looking at. But, we'll see what we come up with. It's sort of an experiment."


Jone Payoul
Friday, July 9, 2010
Based on her personal background (from a average working class family),experience on the bench coupled with her strong personality, I see her as a REAL WINNER. Sotomayer is just what is needed on the Supreme Court because she can hold her own and will not be intimidated by those male tyrant conservatives ! Brand New Lingerie
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Monday, July 12, 2010
I totally aggree with you , Sotomayer is just what is needed on the Supreme Court . She has a great personality and she is best at what she do . And yah ofcourse she can hold her own and will not be intimidated by those male tyrant conservatives , thats why she is the best . Dubai Golf Courses
Camden Franklin
Friday, July 16, 2010
I agree too. Sotomayer is exactly what the Supreme Court needs. Not only does she have a great personality, she is incredibly driven. As a lawyer, I'm particularly impressed by how she is able to juggle her personal life with her professional. It's been a long time since we've seen a justice so open about her personal life and the stress her chosen career has had on it.
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Akan
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Well said "She's going to fall as a moderate liberal," I am really impressed by this statement, its really worth it. CRO
Christina
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
I concur with Segal and also think she is going to be a moderate liberal. I think she is not a doctrinaire like many people think and the Senate should vote her. No one is perfect and her rankings are still outstanding. - Jordan
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Friday, December 3, 2010
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Sunday, December 19, 2010
I totally agree with Sotomayor. Rating system to confirm their necessity and quality of evaluations of judges. Such a system should be spread to other countries DENAS
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Tuesday, March 22, 2011
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Saturday, March 26, 2011
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Thursday, March 31, 2011
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Saturday, April 2, 2011
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Saturday, April 9, 2011
Quite a interessting topic when you think about it. I recently was on a jagd trip in the US and my friend said about the Sotomayor Score, Der Sotomayor Score ist schon ganz wichtig. Besonders bei uns im Business wo es auch mal darum geht gute Sportwaffen zu finden, ist es wichtig sich auch umzuschauen was das Supreme Cout macht. Deswegen ist es gut immer ein Auge drauf zu halten." My friend said that Jeffrey Segal has quite some influence and that it is important to watch him
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Sunday, April 24, 2011
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Friday, May 6, 2011
When asked about the bias the scores could reflect since they're based only on media reports, Segal said the inclusion of newspapers on both sides of the divide should ensure that they're an accurate representation of how justices are being perceived.
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Friday, July 29, 2011
Sotomayer is exactly what the Supreme Court needs, she has a great personality and she knows her profession. I am interested in seeing when easter 2012 is there with that important case if she's still as capable as before easter 2012. I am not very sure but I think she will be as good in that time period as she's today.
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When asked about the bias the scores could reflect since they're based only on media reports, Segal said the inclusion of newspapers on both sides of the divide should ensure that they're an accurate representation of how justices are being perceived. He also said that the ideology ratings end up doing "an excellent job of predicting justices' overall liberalism or conservatism once they're on the Supreme Court." Statistically comparing justices' ideology score and voting behavior going back to the Warren court, Segal said there is a 0.79 "correlation coefficient." That is so cheap
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