… A book scheduled to be published in January by Harvard University Press provides the most comprehensive and detailed empirical analysis yet of the role played by ideology and political affiliation in judicial decision making. It is called “The Behavior of Federal Judges,” and it collects and analyzes a daunting amount of data. …
The book’s broadest findings are unsurprising but worth stating for those in denial about such things.
“Justices appointed by Republican presidents vote more conservatively on average than justices appointed by Democratic ones, with the difference being most pronounced in civil rights cases,” the three authors write. [cont.]
Adam Liptak, New York Times