Posts Tagged ‘Supreme Court’

The Ideological History of the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) – TargetPoint

January 21st, 2010
Snapshot of the latest SCOTUS ideological scores (source: targetpointconsulting.com)

Snapshot of the latest SCOTUS ideological scores (source: targetpointconsulting.com)

Andrew Martin (Washington University, School of Law) and Kevin Quinn (U.C. Berkeley School of Law) devised the Martin-Quinn scoring system to gauge the ideological flavor of courts. Alex Lundry applied that scoring system to the SCOTUS to create a fascinating visualization showing the conservative/liberal tendencies of each justice since 1937, along with an overall score of the entire court: The Ideological History of the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) – TargetPoint. He (along with Carl Roose who adapted the graphic for the web) clearly spent a lot of time going through the court’s history, applying the scoring system to show both by justice and collectively, by year, the court leaned.

The snapshot shown here is only the latest portion of the chart — take a look at the whole page for additional details, along with a couple videos, including an intro.

The Next Supreme Court Justice: Andrew Gelman’s take

May 12th, 2009

Andrew Gelman, at Columbia University, clearly enjoys his work. Anyone who publishes this must: “My quick take on the Souter replacement is that … Obama could nominate Pee Wee Herman to the Supreme Court and get him confirmed. But I’m no expert on this…” Very funny. I wonder what he’s like in person.

He posted a thorough and enlightening review of the possibilities for the next Supreme Court justice, based on current (and recently departed) judges: http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2009/05/the_next_suprem.html. Take some time to scour through his write-up.  While you’re at it, treat yourself to the rest of his blog. It’s rich!