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". The scores have been updated by Segal to cover all nominees from Hugo Black in 1937 to the 2010 nomination of Elena Kagan. 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."

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

Nom. Order	Nominee	Chief Justice	Senate Vote	Ideology Score	Qualifications Score
1	Hugo Black		67 – 18	0.875	0.160
2	Stanley F. Reed		Voice Vote	0.725	0.875
3	Felix Frankfurter		Voice Vote	0.665	0.965
4	William O. Douglas		62 – 4	0.730	0.820
5	Frank Murphy		Voice Vote	1.000	0.650
6	Harlan F. Stone	CJ	Voice Vote	0.300	1.000
7	James F. Byrnes		Voice Vote	0.330	0.800
8	Robert H. Jackson		Voice Vote	1.000	0.915
9	Wiley B. Rutledge		Voice Vote	1.000	1.000
10	Harold H. Burton		Voice Vote	0.280	0.930
11	Fred M. Vinson	CJ	Voice Vote	0.750	0.785
12	Tom C. Clark		73 – 8	0.500	0.125
13	Sherman Minton		48 – 16	0.720	0.355
14	Earl Warren	CJ	Voice Vote	0.750	0.855
15	John M. Harlan		71 – 11	0.875	0.750
16	William J. Brennan, Jr.		Voice Vote	1.000	1.000
17	Charles E. Whittaker		Voice Vote	0.500	1.000
18	Potter Stewart		70 – 17	0.750	1.000
19	Byron White		Voice Vote	0.500	0.500
20	Arthur J. Goldberg		Voice Vote	0.750	0.915
21	Abe Fortas		Voice Vote	1.000	1.000
22	Thurgood Marshall		69 – 11	1.000	0.835
23	Abe Fortas	CJ	45 – 43 *	0.845	0.635
24	Warren E. Burger	CJ	74 – 3	0.115	0.960
25	Clement Haynsworth, Jr.		45 – 55	0.160	0.335
26	G. Harrold Carswell		45 – 51	0.040	0.111
27	Harry A. Blackmun		94 – 0	0.115	0.970
28	Lewis F. Powell, Jr.		89 – 1	0.165	1.000
29	William Rehnquist		68 – 26	0.045	0.885
30	John Paul Stevens		98 – 0	0.250	0.960
31	Sandra Day O’Connor		99 – 0	0.415	1.000
32	William Rehnquist	CJ	65 – 33	0.045	0.400
33	Antonin Scalia		98 – 0	0.000	1.000
34	Robert H. Bork		42 – 58	0.095	0.790
35	Douglas Ginsburg		Withdrawn	0.000	0.320
36	Anthony Kennedy		97 – 0	0.365	0.890
37	David Souter		90 – 9	0.325	0.765
38	Clarence Thomas		52 – 48	0.160	0.415
39	Ruth Bader Ginsburg		96 – 3	0.680	1.000
40	Stephen G. Breyer		87 – 9	0.475	0.545
41	John G. Roberts	CJ	78 – 22	0.120	0.970
42	Harriet E. Miers		Withdrawn	0.270	0.360
43	Samuel Alito		58 – 42	0.100	0.810
44	Sonia Sotomayor		68 – 31	0.780	0.810
45	Elena Kagan		63 – 37	0.730	0.730

* 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