Segal–Cover score

A Segal–Cover score is an attempt to measure the "perceived qualifications and ideology" of United States Supreme Court justices. The scores are created by analyzing pre-confirmation newspaper editorials regarding the nominations from The New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and The Wall Street Journal. Each nominee receives two scores that range from 0 to 1:

• Qualifications: 0 means unqualified and 1 means extremely qualified
• Ideology: 0 means most conservative, and 1 means most liberal.

The Segal–Cover scoring was introduced by Jeffrey Segal and Albert Cover (both of Stony Brook University) in their 1989 article "Ideological Values and the Votes of U.S. Supreme Court Justices".^[1][2] The scores have been updated by Segal to cover all nominees from Hugo Black in 1937 to the 2010 nomination of Elena Kagan.^[3] Segal and Cover found that the scores are strongly correlated with the subsequent votes of the justices. Because the scores are based on perceptions before the nominee takes a seat on the Court, they also provide "reliable measures of the ideological values of Supreme Court justices that are independent of the votes they later cast."^[1]

The Segal–Cover perceived qualifications and ideology scores for all nominees to the Court from 1937–2012:

* The vote on Fortas for the Chief Justice position was on cloture and failed to receive the necessary two-thirds majority.

A highlighted row indicates that the Justice is currently serving on the Court. A Senate vote in red text indicates that the nomination was blocked.

See also

• Supreme Court of the United States
• Ideological leanings of U.S. Supreme Court justices

References

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