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Linking Party to Judicial Ideology in American Courts:
A Meta-Analysis

Daniel R. Pinello
The Justice System Journal
Volume 20, Number 3
1999
Pages 219-54

Abstract

            One hundred forty books, articles, dissertations, and conference papers are identified in the legal and political-science literatures between 1959 and 1998 reporting empirical research pertinent to a link between judges' political-party affiliation and judicial ideology in the United States. Meta-analyzing 84 studies to synthesize findings, this paper confirms conventional wisdom among students of judicial behavior that party is a dependable yardstick for ideology: Democratic judges are more liberal on the bench than Republican ones. Two methodological characteristics moderate study results — statistical technique, and researchers’ use of only nonunanimous appellate decisions. The weighted-mean-product-moment effect size of party, regardless of court or subject matter, and corrected for moderator effects, is +.615, explaining 38% of the variance of judicial ideology. Further, party is a stronger attitudinal force in federal courts, attributable for almost half of the variance, than in state tribunals.

We assumed that, in general, Democratic [federal-appellate-court] appointees are more liberal and Republicans more conservative in policy orientation.

—Cross and Tiller (1998, 2168)

in the Yale Law Journal

Although previous studies have adopted a number of strategies for estimating judges’ political or ideological attitudes, the most common approach — particularly at the state level — has been to use the party affiliation of a judge or of the governor who appointed the judge.

—Flemming, Holian, and Mezey (1998, 40)

in the American Politics Quarterly

Here, we made the standard assumption that Republican judges tend to reach more conservative decisions than do Democratic judges.

—Gerber and Park (1997, 395)

in the American Political Science Review

            Ideology is a vitally important concept to the empirical study of political behavior (e.g., Campbell, Converse, Miller, and Stokes 1960; Converse 1964; Barton and Parsons 1977; Entman 1983; Luttbeg and Gant 1985; Knight and Erikson 1997; Levine, Carmines, and Huckfeldt 1997). This is no less true for judicial behavior (e.g., Songer 1982; Brenner and Spaeth 1988; Sheehan, Mishler, and Songer 1992).

            Ideology typically is measured along conservative-liberal continua in American politics. The attitudinal model, a dominant paradigm for scholarship on the U.S. Supreme Court, manifests judicial behaviorists' belief in the centrality of ideology, holding that

the Supreme Court decides disputes in light of the facts of the case vis-à-vis the ideological attitudes and values of the justices. Simply put, Rehnquist votes the way he does because he is extremely conservative; Marshall voted the way he did because he is extremely liberal. Segal and Spaeth (1993, 65).

            Measuring justices' attitudes, though, has been perplexing because of the circularity inherent in predicting future votes by means of past ones. To circumvent this dilemma, Segal and Cover (1989) developed a mechanism for gauging Supreme Court justices' attitudes through content analysis of preconfirmation elite-newspaper editorials. This ideology-measuring technique, expanded in Segal, Epstein, Cameron, and Spaeth (1995), can be applied to other courts. Emmert and Traut (1994), for example, emulated Segal and Cover to probe the California Supreme Court. Yet, although highly innovative, the Segal-Cover approach is relatively recent and not easily replicated for comparative studies of numerous state or lower federal courts. Editorial commentary is not comprehensively available for lower-court personnel; and even if it were, the method is labor intensive.

            Instead, public-law scholars traditionally have used judges' political-party affiliations as proxies for judicial ideology (Lloyd 1995). Empirical examinations of how party identification influences judges' decisionmaking date from the groundbreaking works of Schubert (1959) and Nagel (1961). As the quotations at the beginning of the paper indicate, conventional wisdom today among students of judicial behavior sees party as a dependable yardstick for ideology: Republican judges are conservatives; Democrats, liberals.

            Nonetheless, is there truly an empirically verified connection between judges' party identification and their behavior on the bench? How extensively and reliably have researchers found Republican judges indeed vote for conservative outcomes and Democrats for liberal ones? Although scholars have mounted partial lists of myriad investigations (e.g., Tarr 1994, 286-88), no comprehensive compilation exists to consolidate almost 40 years of inquiry into party affiliation's impact on judicial action. 

            Meta-analysis affords the opportunity to fuse fragmented knowledge:

In 1904 the British mathematician Karl Pearson invented a statistical method for combining divergent findings. . . . Pearson’s simple but creative idea was to compute the correlation [between two variables] within each [empirical study] . . . and then average the correlations of all the [studies]; the result, balancing out the chance factors and idiosyncrasies of the individual studies, would be a datum more trustworthy than any of the individual statistics that went into computing it (Hunt, 1997: 8).

            Yet, despite the promise of meta-analysis, social scientists embrace it sparingly. As Doucouliagos (1995: 58) notes: “Meta-analysis, a set of techniques for distilling a single estimate from a number of studies, is widely used in psychology and sociology and is beginning to be applied in management studies. Unfortunately, with a few notable exceptions . . . , it has not been adopted in economic analysis.” The same is true for law and political science. Those disciplines lack meta-analytic traditions [1].

[Footnote 1: For rare examples of meta-analytic research in political science, see Hale (1998), Lau, Sigelman, Heldman, and Babbitt (1999), and Wolf (1997). Standard references on meta-analysis include Cooper and Hedges (1994), Hunter and Schmidt (1990), Rosenthal (1991), and Wolf (1986). For non-technical discussions of the value of meta-analysis, see Hunt (1997) and Hunter and Schmidt (1996).]

            The legal and political-science literatures in fact report well over one hundred empirical findings on the relationship between political party and judicial ideology in American courts. Yet, no sweeping, systematic analysis has taken stock of that wealth of information. Filling the void, this article provides a compendium of empirical undertakings connecting party ID with judicial ideology, evaluates the findings meta-analytically to synthesize the observations, and determines whether methodological characteristics moderate study results.

Research Design

Identifying Studies

            To inventory relevant research, I perused the American Journal of Political Science, the American Political Science Review, the American Politics Quarterly, the Journal of Politics, the Law and Society Review, Polity, the Social Science Quarterly, and the Western Political Quarterly (renamed Political Research Quarterly in 1993) for articles since 1977 associating political party with judicial ideology in American courts. I also searched the databases Criminal Justice Abstracts, Dissertation Abstracts, Lexis-Nexis, PAIS-International, and Westlaw [2]. The information found through these electronic and print resources in turn lead to other literature citations. In addition, I sent queries to (1) LAWCOURTS-L (the Internet discussion list sponsored by the American Political Science Association’s Law and Courts Section), with over 370 subscribers, and (2) PSRT-L (the APSA's research and teaching list), having more than 1,500 subscribers.

[Footnote 2: The search instructions were (“POLITICAL PARTY” “POLITICAL PARTIES”) W/P (JUD! JUSTICE) or variations thereof depending on the conventions of each database.]

            As a result, I identified 140 books, articles, dissertations, and conference papers in the legal and political-science literatures between 1959 and 1998 revealing empirical research pertinent to a link between party and modern judicial ideology in the United States. The list surely is not exhaustive. Some explorations (especially conference papers not later published) probably escaped my net. Nevertheless, after an extensive search, I'm confident the vast majority of applicable published scholarship is included.

            Publication bias is a perennial theme in meta-analysis (Begg 1994; Hunt 1997, 118-121; Rosenthal 1979). Yet, it’s not an obstacle here. Of 84 studies contained in the analysis, ten are unpublished [3]. Their weighted-mean effect size (discussed infra) is +.305 (with 95% confidence interval from +.204 to +.407). By comparison, the mean effect size for the 74 published investigations is +.273 (confidence interval from +.198 to +.349). In other words, projects languishing in the proverbial “file drawer” estimate a stronger relationship than the publicly disclosed research, contrary to publication-bias theory.

[Footnote 3: Bowen (1965); Crews-Meyer and Anderson (1994); Howard (1998); Jensen and Kuersten (1997); Pinello (1998); Segall (1998); Smith and Tiller (1996); Songer (1995); Vigilante (1998); and Wahlbeck (1997a).]

Inclusion Criteria

            Every study included in the meta-analysis meets seven criteria:

1. The dependent variable is a constitutional, legal, or political topic susceptible of empirical analysis using generally agreed standards for categorization along conservative and liberal norms. Overwhelmingly, dependent variables deal with subjects falling into three major categories: (1) civil rights and liberties; (2) criminal justice; and (3) economic regulation and labor relations. Scholars have used consistent definitions of liberal and conservative judicial action. In criminal-justice cases, votes favoring the defendant are liberal; those for the prosecution, conservative. In government regulation of the economy, choosing the regulator is liberal; the regulated, conservative. Preferring workers in labor-relations cases is liberal; employers, conservative. In civil rights and liberties, votes for the claimed right are liberal; against the right, conservative [4]. For dichotomous variables, the liberal position is most often coded 1 and the conservative, 0.
   
   [Footnote 4: A more comprehensive enumeration is in Rowland and Carp (1996).]
    

   Three studies are excluded from the meta-analysis for failure to meet this criterion [5]. Two address judicial support for enhancing presidential power, with Ducat and Dudley (1989) claiming it liberal and Yates and Whitford (1998) believing it conservative. Thus, no scholarly consensus exists by which to categorize the analyses.
   
   

   [Footnote 5: Ducat and Dudley (1989); Swinford and Waltenburg (1996); and Yates and Whitford (1998).]
   
   

2. The independent variable measures judicial ideology by means of judges’ political-party affiliations, with Republican-Party-identified judges most often coded 0, and Democratic-Party-identified judges, 1 [6]. Party affiliation usually means the judges’ personal party identifications are used, although investigations of the federal bench often look at the party of appointing presidents to find cohort effects (e.g., Gottschall 1983; Tomasi and Velona 1987).
   
   [Footnote 6: Infrequently, the independent-variable scale is 0 = Republican, 1 = Independent, and 2 = Democrat (e.g., Tate and Handberg 1991). If the dependent variable is coded 1 for conservative and 0 for liberal, then the party variable is 1 for Republican and 0 for Democrat (e.g., Cohen 1992; and Sisk, Heise, and Morriss 1998).]
   
   Feiock (1989) and Songer and Haire (1992) use presidential cohorts in logistic regression analyses and not a singular party variable; thus no single effect size r (discussed below) can be calculated. Also, Humphries and Songer (1997) and Langer (1997) use hybrid ideological measures (encompassing party) and are omitted because of this criterion.
   
   

3. Modern (i.e., post-World-War-II) American judicial behavior is the principal interest. Purely historical canvasses such as Schmidhauser's (1963) investigation of 19th Century justices are not included. In addition, works straddling eras to the degree that contemporary court action is overwhelmed by pre-World-War-II judicial votes are eliminated [7].
   
   [Footnote 7: Lanier (1997a, 1997b); Sprague (1968); and Ulmer (1986).]
   
   

4. Statistical findings must be susceptible of conversion into the effect size r. In 20 studies, r could not be obtained from the reported findings because either (1) standard errors, t statistics, or degrees of freedom were not reported for regression coefficients [8] or (2) the kind of statistical technique employed (e.g., discriminate function analysis in Aliotta 1988; path analysis in Baum 1980; and difference of medians in Goldman 1966) does not permit conversion of findings into an effect size.
   
   [Footnote 8: Ashenfelter, Eisenberg, and Schwab (1995); Haynie and Tate (1990); Kramer (1997); Tate (1990); and Tate and Handberg (1991).]
   
   

5. The units of empirical analysis are court cases or judicial votes. This criterion permits cumulation and comparison of uniform effect sizes (Light and Pillemer 1984, 170-71). Seven studies are excluded because their analytic units are either judges or states [9].
   
   [Footnote 9: Canon and Baum (1981); Howard (1971); Sprague (1968); Vines (1964, 1969); Wenzel, Bowler, and Lanoue (1997); and Wold (1974).]
   
   

6. The number of judicial votes supporting statistical results are reported. The need to adjust the weights of individual effect sizes to achieve mean estimates (discussed below) requires this criterion.
   
   Five appellate examinations report only the number of court cases. In that circumstance, I estimate the votes by multiplying the reported number of cases by a factor of either three (for U.S. Court of Appeals cases) or five (for state supreme court cases) [10].
   
   [Footnote 10: Some federal appellate decisions are en banc, and some state supreme courts have more than five members. Because studies don’t report what proportion of federal appellate decisions are en banc, nor necessarily what specific state supreme courts are embraced, using the multiplicative factors of three and five, respectively, gives the minimum number of votes. Since the mean estimates of adjusted effect sizes reported here are based on more than 200,000 judicial votes, this conservative technique for converting court cases to votes does not significantly discount impact in the meta-analysis.]
   
   Four studies are omitted because of this criterion [11].
   
   [Footnote 11: Benesh (1997); Epstein, Walker, and Dixon (1989); Lanier (1997a); and Tate and Handberg (1991).]
   
   

7. A work cannot substantially duplicate the data set and statistical technique of another in the meta-analysis. Some scholars use the same or very similar data in different enterprises. Including each separately in the meta-analysis would inappropriately multiply the influence of effect sizes from identical data. Rather, when numerous projects authored by the same scholar(s) or co-researchers are based on identical or very similar data, only the one with the largest data set is directly embraced in the meta-analysis.
   
   The clearest example is Rowland and Carp (1996), the culmination of eleven earlier explorations of policymaking in the federal district courts [12]. Because the predecessor projects uniformly involve frequency analyses, Rowland and Carp’s (1996) r (a zero-order correlation) necessarily embraces the earlier findings. Stuart S. Nagel’s studies (1961, 1962a, 1962b, 1969, 1974, 1982) are treated similarly [13].
   
   [Footnote 12: Carp and Rowland (1983); Carp and Stidham (1990); Rowland and Carp (1980,1983a, 1983b); Rowland, Carp, and Stidham (1984); Rowland, Songer, and Carp (1988); Rowland and Todd (1991); Stidham and Carp (1982, 1987); and Stidham, Carp, and Rowland (1983).]
   
   [Footnote 13: An exception to the non-duplication rule is the inclusion of both Gryski and Main (1986) and Gryski, Main, and Dixon (1986). The former examines only nonunanimous decisions while the latter contains unanimous cases — an important difference for the investigation of moderator variables.]
   
   The state-supreme-court death-penalty articles by Paul Brace and Melinda Gann Hall, however, offer a contrast [14]. They use probit regression to produce rs that are partial-correlation coefficients determined by sundry independent variables in regression equations. Accordingly, I calculate individual rs and average the effect sizes, weighted by the number of judicial votes per study (Doucouliagos 1995, 63; Hunter and Schmidt 1990, Chapter 10). The number of judicial votes in the meta-analysis for this mean r is the largest (Hall and Brace 1996) among the six articles.
   
   [Footnote 14: Brace and Hall (1993, 1995, 1997); and Hall and Brace (1992, 1994, 1996).]
   
   Inevitably, different scholars use overlapping data sets. Rather than slavishly apply a non-duplication criterion (and end up with a very limited meta-analysis), I include all explorations by discrete authors. Such heterogeneity of method in fact improves the quality of the synthesis (Doucouliagos 1995, 63; Glass 1978; Glass 1983, 401, 404).
   
   Altogether, 84 studies are embodied in the meta-analysis, listed in Table 1 and arranged by court.

Table 1

Studies Included in the Meta-Analysis

United States Supreme Court

United States Courts of Appeals

*Includes Rowland, Songer, and Carp (1988).
**Estimated from the number of judicial decisions and judicial panel size.

United States District Courts

 ***Includes Carp and Rowland 1983; Carp and Stidham 1990; Rowland and Carp 1980, 1983a, 1983b; Rowland, Carp, and Stidham 1984; Rowland, Songer, and Carp 1988; Rowland and Todd 1991; Stidham and Carp 1982, 1987; and Stidham, Carp, and Rowland 1983.

State Supreme Courts

**Estimated from the number of judicial decisions and judicial panel size.
****Weighted average of r from the six studies by Brace and Hall.

State Intermediate Appellate Courts

State Trial Courts

            Notably, merely two studies emerge for the United States Supreme Court, reflecting (1) the omission of 13 investigations pursuant to the inclusion criteria [15], (2) the unavailability of another four [16], and equally important, (3) Supreme-Court researchers’ abandonment of party as an ideological measure and their adoption of the Segal and Cover (1989) scores. As Epstein and Mershon (1996, 265) comment: “[I]t would hardly be an exaggeration to write that almost every recent study of [U.S. Supreme] Court decision making has — in one way or another — invoked [the Segal and Cover (1989)] scores” [17]

[Footnote 15: Aliotta (1988); Epstein, Walker, and Dixon (1989); Haynie and Tate (1990); Howard (1971); Lanier (1997a, 1997b); Schmidhauser (1963); Sprague (1968); Swinford and Waltenburg (1996); Tate (1990); Tate and Handberg (1991); Ulmer (1986); and Yates and Whitford (1998).]

[Footnote 16: Leavitt (1972); Lewis (1972); Lindstrom (1968); and Padgett (1980).]

[Footnote 17: Research using the Segal-Cover measures includes Kearney and Sheehan (1992); Mishler and Sheehan (1993, 1996); Nelson (1997); Segal (1997); Segal, Cameron, and Cover (1992); Sheehan, Mishler, and Songer (1992); and Wahlbeck (1997b).]

            Thirty-nine probes are blocked from the metal-analysis for failure to meet one or more of the selection criteria. In addition, 17 unpublished dissertations and conference papers are unavailable to me, and Dissertation Abstracts otherwise does not reveal sufficient statistical information to satisfy the inclusion criteria. Table 2 inventories the 56 discarded inquiries and summarizes the reasons for omission.

Table 2

Studies Excluded from the Meta-Analysis

United States Supreme Court

United States Courts of Appeals

United States District Courts

State Supreme Courts

State Trial Courts

Court Unknown

            Scholars’ verdicts from 36 excluded studies in my possession (or otherwise adequately described in Dissertation Abstracts), and not duplicating works already in the meta-analysis, indicate their omission does not distort the synthesis. Sixteen conclusions support the hypothesis that party affiliation does affect judicial policymaking [18]. Fourteen decide party is not important to judicial action [19]. Six produce ambiguous findings [20]. Further, among the four deleted projects for which some effect size can be computed, two are strong (.461 for Benesh 1997; and .885 for Epstein, Walker, and Dixon 1989), one is moderate (.303 for Ulmer 1986), and the last is weak (.024 for economic-regulation decisions and .192 for civil-rights-and-liberties cases in Lanier 1997a). Thus, because these impressionistic characterizations do not favor one side or the other of the issue but rather appear to be random, the works’ exclusion does not introduce identifiable bias into the meta-analysis.

[Footnote 18: Aliotta (1988); Benesh (1997); Epstein, Walker, and Dixon (1989); Bradley and Ulmer (1980); Feeley (1969); Feiock (1989); Giles, Hettinger, and Peppers (1997); Goldman (1965); Lindstrom (1968); Note (1989); Songer and Haire (1992); Tate and Handberg (1991); Tauber (1998); Van Winkle (1997); Vogt (1985); and Yates and Whitford (1998).]

[Footnote 19: Ashenfelter, Eisenberg, and Schwab (1995); Baum (1980); Canon and Baum (1981); Ducat and Dudley (1989); Howard (1971, 1981); Kramer (1997); Lewis (1972); Solimine (1988); Ulmer (1986); Vines (1964, 1969); Wenzel, Bowler, and Lanoue (1997); and Wold (1974).]

[Footnote 20: Goldman (1966); Herndon (1963); Lanier (1997a, 1997b); Sprague (1968); Unah (1997).]

Determining Effect Sizes

            Meta-analytic effect sizes measure statistical findings with a common metric. The Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (r) is the yardstick for synthesizing scholarship reporting on the relationship between two variables, both measured on interval or ratio scales (Cohen 1988, 75; Cooper 1989, 104; Wolf 1986, 34).

            Table 1 reports the unadjusted effect sizes in the meta-analysis. Three researchers directly report partial-correlation coefficients [21]. More frequently (38 surveys), the reporting of percentages of judicial votes in favor of liberal or conservative positions by specific judges whose party affiliations are known permits conversion into proportions of votes in each category, and thereby, cross-tabulations reveal r. Included here are canvasses using multivariate analysis yielding statistics that are not convertible to effect sizes (e.g, Songer and Davis 1990).

[Footnote 12: Bowen (1965); Goldman (1975); and Willison (1986).]

            For 22 studies using regression techniques susceptible of conversion and reporting complete data, the effect size is determined by the formula

r = square root of (t-squared/(t-squared+df))

where t is the t-test value reported for the coefficient or estimate of the party variable in the equation and df is the degrees of freedom in the analysis (Cooper 1989, 104; Wolf 1986, 35).

Findings

            From the effect sizes in Table 1, I calculate a mean correlation, weighted by the number of judicial votes per study [22], and then estimate the variance in observed correlations not due to sampling error [23]. These data are displayed in the first row of Table 3, together with 95% credibility and confidence intervals following Whitener (1990).

[Footnote 22: The use of the word “study” here and in the balance of the article is not precise because multiple unadjusted effect sizes in Table 1 come from a single source. Songer (1995), for example, reports different logistic regression equations for civil-rights-and-liberties, criminal-justice, and economic-regulation cases, without consolidating them. Also, instead of combining Gottschall’s (1983) zero-order correlations for civil-rights-and-liberties and criminal-justice decisions, I include them separately because the latter is based only on nonunanimous cases while the former contains unanimous holdings — an important distinction for moderator-variable investigation. I disaggregate the district-court and appellate-court data found in Stidham, Carp, and Songer (1996) and Stidham, Carp, Songer, and Surratt (1992). Thus, the textual reference ought to be to “unadjusted effect size” rather than “study.” Unfortunately, “unadjusted effect size” might lead to confusion with “weighted mean effect size,” and so I choose the inexact “study” instead.]

[Footnote 23: This is a “bare bones” meta-analysis, not correcting for other artifacts such as measurement error or range restriction (Hunter and Schmidt, Chapter 3).]

Table 3

Meta-Analytic Findings*

*The data in this table are obtained following the procedures in Hunter and Schmidt (1990, Chapter 3) and Whitener (1990) and are corrected for sampling error.

            Thus, across all courts and subject matters, and without regard to moderators (discussed below), the weighted mean correlation between political party and judicial ideology is +.277. Cohen (1988, 79-81) categorizes this as a medium effect size, attributing about 8% of the variance of the dependent variable (ideology) to the independent variable (party).

            Because credibility intervals test for the influence of moderator variables and address whether a population should be broken into subpopulations (Whitener 1990), the inclusion of zero in the interval in Row 1 of Table 3 suggests the need to search for moderators. Two prospective ones emerge.

Moderator Variables

            Method of Statistical Analysis. Twenty-four of 66 effect sizes in Table 1 come from multivariate regression; 39 are zero-order correlations. The unadjusted rs reveal the highest effect sizes arise from regression. Indeed, in light of conventional wisdom that party reliably predicts judicial ideology, one would expect higher regression-derived effect sizes because multivariate analysis produces the best independent-variable estimates. Accordingly, regression may provide effect sizes systematically larger than zero-order correlations in the meta-analysis, and statistical technique may be a moderator variable.

            Use of Only Nonunanimous Court Cases. Judicial-behavior scholars exploring multimember courts frequently look solely at nonunanimous opinions because, they argue, the lack of unanimity indicates the legal questions involved in such cases are relatively difficult ones to decide, with respectable arguments on each side, often involving controversial public issues (e.g., Nagel 1973; Tomasi and Velona 1987). Further, nonunanimous opinions facilitate certain analytical techniques, such as Guttman scales (Tate 1983).

            Nonetheless, statistically significant findings regarding party impact may be artifacts of methodology and models overlooking the vast majority of appellate output [24]. The propriety of analyzing only nonunanimous cases has been contested since the 1960s. Goldman (1969) and Grossman (1969) laid the theoretical underpinnings of the debate. The approach, for instance, is too susceptible to criticism as nonrepresentative of the full body of appellate output because nonunanimous opinions usually constitute just a fraction — typically 30% or less — of high-court activity. Sprague (1968), for example, finds 71% of Supreme Court decisions between 1889 and 1959 were unanimous; Goldman (1966) counts at least 84% unanimous opinions in U.S. Courts of Appeals; and Dubois (1988, 953), 87% in California intermediate appellate courts. Studies ignoring unanimous decisions, then, support models addressing merely small portions of all judicial activity.

[Footnote 24: Johnston (1976, 79-80) cautions methodology may affect findings in personal-attribute research:

[W]hen E. Lindstrom [(1968)], using a different methodology but the same data base as Sprague [(1968)], found that there were positive correlations between Supreme Court justices' backgrounds and their voting behavior, where Sprague had been unable to find any such correlations, it became evident that methodology might be the cause of some of the conflicting results.]

            More important, recent empirical research provides troubling evidence about the theory behind the nonunanimous methodology. Brenner and Arrington (1990) test the "two-situation" model advocated by C. Herman Pritchett and Sheldon Goldman, which explains unanimous opinions as circumstances when the law is clear and judges have but one choice, and note:

If the two-situation model is valid, then there is no reason to believe that during any extended period of the Court's history, either the liberal or the conservative outcome was dominant in unanimous cases, for there is no reason to believe that the law in these cases would predominantly favor the liberal or the conservative outcome. Brenner and Arrington (1990, 209).

Nonetheless, the authors find liberal outcomes dominate unanimous votes in 33 terms of the Vinson, Warren, and Burger Courts and conclude:

[This finding] is incompatible with the two-situation model. The dominance of the liberals in the unanimous votes throughout this extended period is inconsistent with the idea that in some cases, the law is so clear that the justices have no choice. One would have to assume that for some reason, the law consistently favored the liberals in all kinds of cases and in all kinds of times during these decades. Brenner and Arrington (1990, 217).

            Similarly, Dean (1988), probing all civil-rights-and-liberties and economics decisions by the Supreme Court between 1969 and 1985, finds unanimous decisions distinctly more liberal than nonunanimous. She concludes that ideology clearly affects unanimous civil-rights-and-liberties decisions (although not unanimous economics cases). Likewise, from a random sample of U.S. Court of Appeals decisions between 1965 and 1972, Songer (1982) estimates the proportion of unanimous cases containing “real choice situations” (i.e., permitting judges to decide appeals consistently with their ideology) is between 21 and 33½ percent.

            Pinello (1995, 25) also undermines the theory that unanimous decisions represent instances where courts have a single choice. There, in a carefully structured matched-pair study, two state supreme courts vote without dissent — but reach opposite results — on identical legal issues in fourteen of 29 instances (i.e., 48% of the time). Hence, the convention of using only nonunanimous decisions may mislead scholars, excluding important data from analysis.

            Besides, nonunanimity is no reliable indicator of consequentiality of judicial policy. Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), and United States v. Nixon (1974) — to name but three landmark Supreme Court decisions — were decided unanimously. Yet, a methodology operationally requiring nonunanimous opinions to work necessarily misses such momentous, judicially created policies.

            Goldman (1966, 1975) provides an example of how the nonunanimous approach may affect findings. The former work canvasses both nonunanimous opinions and unanimous reversals of district-court judgments; the latter, exclusively nonunanimous decisions. The nonunanimous-based 1975 undertaking finds clear demarcation by party across all legal topics investigated, while the partially-unanimous-based 1966 survey discovers variance in economic issues alone, not criminal or civil-rights appeals.

            Moreover, empirical inquiry based exclusively on nonunanimous cases at best supports partial models. As Sprague (1968, 7) remarks: "Strictly speaking, the results hold only for cases

. . . in which the Court divided." Thus, before these models can be utilized, another is required to predict when appellate courts fracture.

            In sum, scholars’ use of only nonunanimous court cases may be a moderator in the meta-analysis.

            Two statistical methods are available to confirm moderator variables as such. The first disaggregates studies into subpopulations suggested by the prospective moderators and then looks to the credibility intervals of those subgroups to test for the inclusion of zero (Whitener 1990). Table 3 reveals those subpopulations and credibility intervals.

            Every entry in Table 3 regarding statistical method demonstrates substantially higher findings for regression-derived mean effect sizes than for zero-order correlations, as expected [25]. Indeed, the lone instance of overlap between confidence intervals for simple correlations and regression data occurs for federal district courts (Rows 43 and 44), while every other court and all subject matters demonstrate substantial margins between confidence intervals delineated by statistical method. Further, zero is not embraced in any regression-derived credibility interval (except, again, for federal trial courts), suggesting continued searches for moderators of these subgroups are unnecessary (Whitener 1990) [26]. Clearly, then, statistical method is a moderator variable in the meta-analysis and is referred to hereafter as Moderator #1 [27].

[Footnote 25: Compare Rows 2 and 3, 8 and 9, 12 and 13, 18 and 19, 24 and 25, 30 and 31, 37 and 38, 43 and 44, and 46 and 47.]

[Footnote 26: District-court exceptionalism here probably is a statistical artifact of Rowland and Carp’s (1996) dominance. See infra.]

[Footnote 27: Despite Bowen’s (1965) pioneering work, multiple regression didn’t appear in the judicial-behavior literature until the mid-1970s. Giles and Walker (1975), Goldman (1975), Johnston (1976), Gibson (1978) and Kritzer (1978) ushered in the technique even though earlier statistical procedures, like cumbersome scalogram analysis, continued well into the ‘70s (e.g., Flango and Ducat 1977). This history helped determine when the journal perusal in my research design began.]

            Similar findings appear for the use of only nonunanimous appellate opinions. Every entry in Table 3 specified by this moderator demonstrates considerably higher mean effect sizes for nonunanimous-case enterprises than for those relying on all court decisions [28]. No overlap appears between confidence intervals for all-case studies and those based only on nonunanimous decisions, and zero is not included in any nonunanimous-case-derived credibility interval. Researchers’ use of only nonunanimous court cases, then, also is a moderator variable and is referred to hereafter as Moderator #2.

[Footnote 28: Compare Rows 4 and 5, 14 and 15, 20 and 21, 26 and 27, 32 and 33, 39 and 40, and 48 and 49.]

            The second method to confirm moderator variables is meta-regression analysis (Steel and Ovalle 1984; Stanley and Jarrell 1989; Phillips and Goss 1995). Table 4 displays the outcome from an ordinary-least-squares regression using the effect sizes in Table 1, weighted by the number of judicial votes per study, as the dependent variable and the two prospective moderators as independent variables [29].

[Footnote 29: Moderator #1 is coded 1 if an effect size derives from regression; 0, if a zero-order correlation. The three projects (Bowen 1965; Goldman 1975; and Willison 1986) reporting partial correlations are eliminated from the analysis. Moderator #2 is coded 1 if an examination is based only on nonunanimous cases; 0, if based upon all decisions.]

Table 4

OLS Regression

Dependent Variable = Weighted Effect Size

Independent Variable Beta Standard Error t-Statistic

Standard Error            .01111
n                                    63
Adjusted R2                 .096
* p < .05

            Both Moderator #1 and Moderator #2 are significant at the .05 level. The coefficients appear minuscule (.00921 for #1 and .00598 for #2) because they reflect the dimension of the weighted effect sizes (ranging from -.00018 to .08082 and with mean of .00438 and standard deviation of .0117).

            The equation in Table 4 explains only about 10% of variance, suggesting other moderators exist. The same conclusion results from the inclusion of zero in the credibility intervals in Rows 4, 14, 20, 26, and 39 of Table 3. Although statistical method and the exclusive use of nonunanimous cases apparently are the sole moderators for state courts (i.e., zero is not contained in the credibility intervals in Rows 31, 32, 33, 34, 47, 48, 49, and 50), that is not the circumstance for federal courts.

Discussion

            Because only positively signed values appear in all 95% confidence intervals in Table 3, the most cautious conclusion from the meta-analysis about the relationship between judges’ political-party affiliation and their ideology is that there is a relationship: Democratic judges indeed are more liberal than Republican ones. That’s the easy part.

            Saying how much more liberal is the challenge. Referring just to the weighted-mean effect size (+.277) of all studies in the meta-analysis (Row 1 of Table 3), for example, focuses on a gross measure and ignores analytic nuance. Rather, the answer to the question of “How much more liberal?” has to be “It depends” — on the court, on the subject matter, and equally important, on moderators.

            Comparing party’s impact on ideology across subject matters demonstrates the necessity — and limitations — of accounting for moderator effects. The mean r for all 27 civil-rights-and-liberties investigations is appreciably higher (+.352, Row 7) than for either the 24 criminal-justice (+.226, Row 11) or the 28 economic-regulation (+.194, Row 17) explorations, with very similar standard errors. However, the difference vanishes when Moderator #1 is taken into account in regression-derived subgroups. There, twelve civil-rights-and-liberties surveys result in a mean effect size of +.695 (Row 9); six criminal-justice studies, +.634 (Row 13); and five on economic regulation, +.726 (Row 19). Further, as standard errors increase with fewer rs, confidence intervals become larger, reinforcing an impression of little variation across subject matter. Finally, when Moderator #2’s bias is removed, party has the greatest strength in ten criminal-justice studies (+.634, Row 16), substantially less for six on civil rights and liberties (+.473, Row 10), and even less in four economic-regulation instances (+.218, Row 22). Indeed, the data in Row 22 are based on the smallest number of judicial votes of any subgroup in Table 3, and the dramatic difference in mean effect sizes between Rows 19 and 22 arises from the omission of only one study (Tate 1981). Thus, although focusing attention on appropriate subgroups, correcting for both moderator variables substantially reduces the number of unadjusted effect sizes for calculating weighted means. A tradeoff arises between conserving unadjusted effect sizes in subpopulations and revising weighted-mean-effect-size estimates for moderator distortion.

            Regression-derived effect sizes yield the highest estimates of the relationship between party and ideology — +.711 for all 24 regression-based rs (Row 3 of Table 3). Yet, if broad range of court action is important, then Moderator #2's influence should be eliminated. Row 6 reveals a weighted-mean effect size of +.615 in that circumstance. Although the estimate drops by almost one-tenth of a point in going from Rows 4 to 6, Cohen (1988) still categorizes the latter effect size as large, ascribing about 38% of the variance of judicial ideology to party [30].

[Footnote 30: Simply two studies separate Row 4 from Row 6. One is Tate (1981), representing almost 20,000 judicial votes and one of only two US-Supreme-Court effect sizes in the meta-analysis. Thus, no Supreme Court inquiry remains in the Row 6 subgroup (because the effect size of Johnston, 1976, is a zero-order correlation).]

            The problem with pursuing this interpretive strategy across subpopulations, again, is the small number of appellate-court studies both using regression and relying on all judicial votes. Indeed, only one group of appellate courts — State Supreme Courts (Row 50) — has an adequate supply. By comparison, U.S. Courts of Appeals (Row 41) have only four, with one (Songer and Sheehan 1992) whose 90% of the votes dominate.

            Party is a stronger attitudinal force in federal courts than in state tribunals. The federal-court regression-derived mean effect size is +.794 (Row 25), while that for state judges is +.551 (Row 31), with virtually identical standard errors. Adjusting for Moderator #2 reduces the difference to +.692 (Row 28) and +.553 (Row 34), although still almost half (48%) of the variance in federal-court ideology is attributable to party while less than one-third (31%) is in state courts [31].

[Footnote 31: Eight of the nine unadjusted effect sizes in Row 34, representing 70% of the total judicial votes, come from studies explicitly controlling for region or state ideology. Thus, the state-court weighted-mean effect size is not significantly skewed by conservative Southern Democrats' confusing partisan ideological clarity. Likewise, more than 80% of votes in Row 28 stem from federal-court probes with controls for region.]

            Despite party’s overall importance to federal judges, though, sundry statistical dilemmas afflict the meta-analytic findings regarding individual federal-court levels. As noted, for example, only two unadjusted effect sizes support the US-Supreme-Court data (Row 35). The resultant standard error and confidence interval are large, and little reliance can be placed on the mean-effect-size estimate there. Further, both studies use only nonunanimous cases.

            The absence of party-based projects surveying both nonunanimous and unanimous Supreme Court decisions is not an insurmountable hurdle for civil liberties research because the Segal-Cover scores are at hand. However, investigations incorporating the impact of justices’ ideology on non-civil-liberties topics can’t rely on those measures (Epstein and Mershon, 1996).

            Similarly, few options exist for lower federal courts, where Segal-Cover scores don’t apply at all [32]. As mentioned, most studies (15 of 19) of the U.S. Courts of Appeals provide zero-order-correlation effect sizes, the weighted mean of which (+.124, Row 39) varies dramatically from that for the four regression-based rs (+.815, Row 41), dominated by Songer and Sheehan (1992). Thus, placing confidence in either side of the range is problematic.

[Footnote 32: See Giles, Hettinger, and Peppers (1998) for one prospect.]

            Likewise, Rowland and Carp’s study (1996) overwhelms the 16 federal-trial-court undertakings, with 75% of the judicial votes in the subpopulation. Indeed, the book is so commanding its zero-order correlation (+.085) overpowers the field. Nine regression-based studies, with combined votes representing only 7% of Rowland and Carp’s (1996) total, barely raise the overall district-court mean effect size (to +.099, Row 42). Interestingly, however, their separate mean is merely +.246 (Row 44), a far cry from the intermediate-appellate courts’ +.815.

            Accordingly, under the current literature, the most circumspect estimate of party impact on judicial ideology in federal courts at every level is the overall federal court weighted-mean effect size (+.692, Row 28), corrected for moderator effects and derived from 13 studies involving more than 14,000 judicial votes.

            Several explanations for the difference between the U.S. Courts of Appeals and District Courts are likely. The first is senatorial courtesy. Presidents have greater political flexibility to place candidates with more extreme ideological positions on intermediate-appellate courts than trial courts. A complementary interpretation is that presidents, when making nominations to higher courts, pay more attention to appointees’ policy views (Baum 1997, 63).

            In this regard, a third moderator for federal courts may be era. Party may cleave federal judges appointed in recent decades more than in the years immediately after World War II. Because contemporary American presidents generally have nominated federal judges more reflective of presidential ideology (Goldman 1997), the federal bench may be more balkanized by party than ever before. The problem in testing this hypothesis, though, is the collinearity between era and the rise of scholars’ application of regression techniques, which have been in widespread use for only about two decades — the same period in which the federal bench became more politicized, if the hypothesis is true [33]. Disaggregating the variables’ effects may prove difficult, and in any event, is beyond the scope of the present analysis.

[Footnote 33: See Footnote 27.]

            State Supreme Courts have a weighted-mean-effect-size estimate, corrected for moderator effects, of +.558 (Row 50), explaining 31% of judicial-ideology variance. This is the only individual-court-level estimate based on sufficient studies in the meta-analysis to warrant substantial confidence.

            In contrast, state intermediate-appellate and trial courts have just two unadjusted effect sizes each, reflecting scholars’ relative lack of empirical interest in lower state tribunals. Moreover, three of the four rs are zero-order correlations, while the fourth is based on very few votes. Accordingly, no meaningful weighted-mean estimates of party’s impact in lower state courts are available.

Conclusion

            Cumulating and synthesizing empirical findings on the link between judges’ political-party affiliation and their performance on the bench confirm conventional wisdom that party is a dependable measure of ideology in modern American courts. Democratic judges indeed are more liberal on the bench than Republican counterparts. Research employing regression analysis provides the best estimates of the relationship, while scholars’ use of only nonunanimous appellate opinions overestimates party’s effect on the broad range of judicial action. Corrected for moderator-variable influence, weighted-mean-product-moment effect sizes range from +.553 for state courts to +.692 for federal tribunals, explaining between 31% and 48% of ideological variance, respectively.

            The yearning to refine [34], or replace [35], political party as an ideology measure in judicial-behavior scholarship is patent. These meta-analytic findings can help fashion improved metrics for future research.

[Footnote 34: Brace, Langer, and Hall (1998); Humphries and Songer (1997); and Langer (1997).]

[Footnote 35: Giles, Hettinger, and Peppers (1998); Segal and Cover (1989); Songer and Sarver (1997); and Songer, Segal, and Cameron (1994).]

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