Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Sotomayor In Context: A Moderately Liberal Nominee

Updated at 9:00 p.m., June 30

Sonia Sotomayor likely rivals Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the most liberal Supreme Court nominee of the last 40 years. But that still places her solidly within the mainstream of modern nominees to the bench, according to an analysis of Segal-Cover scores dating back to 1937.

Jeffrey Segal, who helped develop the system for grading nominees' perceived ideological leanings, told NationalJournal.com in early June that Sotomayor would likely have a similar score to Ginsburg -- around 0.68 on the 0-1 scale, with 0 being most conservative. If that's the case, Sotomayor would rank as one of the more liberal judges to be nominated since 1937, but she would hardly approach figures such as William Brennan or Thurgood Marshall, both of whom rate at 1 on the scale.

Ginsburg currently ranks as the court's 17th most liberal nominee going back to the FDR administration. The 10 most conservative nominees during that period include four current justices: Antonin Scalia (he tops the list with a score of 0), Samuel Alito (0.10), Chief Justice John Roberts (0.12) and Clarence Thomas (0.16). Former Chief Justice William Rehnquist comes in third, with a score of 0.05, and President Reagan's failed nominee Robert Bork is up there as well, with a score of 0.10.

To configure Sotomayor's score, Segal will continue evaluating editorials from five major newspapers -- the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times -- until the full Senate votes. The Journal was added starting with David Souter's nomination in 1990 to compensate for the Los Angeles Times' drift leftward, Segal said.

Editor's note: This is the first of a series of posts The Ninth Justice is doing examining historical data from a database compiled by Northwestern law professor Lee Epstein and her colleagues. Check back later this week for more context and analysis on Sotomayor.