The Supreme Court as a Representative Institution: Ranking the Justices

• In Event: Taking the Measure of Judicial Institutions

Abstract

Political scientists often rate Supreme Court justices from “great” to “failure” based on the justices’ intellectual abilities, leadership or workload skills, personal traits, legal impact, integrity, or other traits. This paper proposes that the justices can be ranked on how well they represent the American public’s views. Based on nationwide polls, the modern Court’s justices are rated as great, near-great, average, or below average. Three criteria are used: how often the justices’ votes agree with poll majorities or pluralities; whether their votes more often agreed with the polls than did their peers voting on the same disputes; and whether their tie-breaking votes moved the Court closer to nationwide public opinion.

Author

• Thomas R. Marshall, University of Texas, Arlington