Did Scalia's Death Cause Sotomayor To Become More Conservative?

• In Event: Conservatism and the Courts

Brief Overview

We use an exogenous shock to the Court--Justice Scali's unexpected death--to estimate the effect of agenda change on the estimated ideal points of justices. We show that Scalia's death caused changes in ideal points estimates for six justices.

Authors

• Ben Johnson, Pennsylvania State University

• Logan Strother, Purdue University