Ideological Values and the Votes of U.S. Supreme Court Justices Revisited
Jeffrey A. Segal, Lee Epstein, Harold J. Spaeth, and Charles Cameron

Journal of Politics 57 (3): 812-823 (1995)
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Abstract
Segal and Cover (1989) analyzed the content of newspaper editorials to devise measures of the ideological values of the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. Because their measures came from sources independent of the judicial vote, scholars have widely adopted them. This note updates, backdates, and extends the Segal and Cover research by adding the two Bush appointees and the seven Roosevelt and four Truman nominees whose service extended beyond the start of the Vinson Court. While we find that the ideological values of the Eisenhower through Bush appointees correlate strongly with votes cast in economic and civil liberties cases, the results are less robust for justices appointed by Roosevelt and Truman.

keywords: ideological values, Supreme Court, Segal-Cover scores, civil liberties, economic regulation, judicial behavior, voting patterns, attitudinal model, judicial decision-making.