The Effects of Information on the Accuracy of Presidential Assessments of Supreme Court Nominee Preferences

• Published date: 01 March 2005
• Date: 01 March 2005
• Author: John Szmer,Donald R. Songer
• DOI: 10.1177/106591290505800114
• Subject Matter: Articles

There can be little doubt that presidents draw on a

wide variety of powers in an attempt to influence

policy. A critical tool in that effort is the appointment

power, including the power to appoint justices to the

Supreme Court. While most presidential initiatives to influ-

ence policy are limited to the president’s term in office, the

judicial appointment power affords presidents with oppor-

tunities to create “an enduring legacy long after their terms

are through” (Segal, Timpone, and Howard 2000, 558). To

be successful in this endeavor to influence policy, presi-

dents must be successful in securing the appointment of

justices with similar policy preferences, and those judicial

preferences in turn must then have a major influence on

judicial votes. Recent analyses suggest that over the past

half century, presidents have in fact been reasonably suc-

cessful in appointing justices who share their values and

subsequently vote in rough concordance with the prefer-

ences of the president (Scigliano 1971; Segal, Timpone,

and Howard 2000). Nevertheless, a substantial portion of

the variance in the voting of the justices is not explained by

the measures of presidential preferences used in these or

similar analyses (Gates and Cohen 1989; Lindquist, Yalof,

and Clark 2000; Segal and Cover 1989; Segal, Timpone

and Howard. 2000).

These findings are consistent with conclusions of most

modern Supreme Court scholars that attitudes are a signifi-

cant factor in the explanation of the justices’ decisions

(Epstein and Knight 1998; Maltzman, Spriggs and

Wahlbeck 2000; Schubert 1965; Songer and Lindquist

1996). It is also widely believed that all of the major partic-

ipants in the selection process believe that the justices’ atti-

tudes matter (Epstein and Knight 1998; Maltzman, Spriggs

and Wahlbeck 2000; Segal and Spaeth 1993; Songer and

Lindquist 1996). Consequently, the behavior of presidents,

senators, and interest groups all appear to be motivated pri-

marily by their perceptions of the congruence between the

nominee’s ideological values and their own policy prefer-

ences, tempered in part by strategic calculations (Moraski

and Shipan 1999; Overby et al 1992; Ruckman 1993; Segal,

Cameron and Cover 1992).

The present study contributes to both the understanding

of judicial voting and the dynamics of judicial selection by

exploring the role of information in the assessment of judi-

cial attitudes. Specifically, we test whether the information

about the policy preferences of potential nominees to the

Supreme Court that is available to the president (and his

staff) helps to explain the degree of congruence between the

policy preferences of nominating presidents and the policies

adopted by the justices they select.

USES OF INFORMATION IN THE SELECTION OF JUSTICES

Scholars posit that presidents often consider policy

during the nomination process, though they differ in the

exact nature of the goals that they seek to maximize, as well

the weight they attribute to policy versus other goals (Baum

2001; Moraski and Shippan 1999). Moreover, most versions

of the basic hypothesis recognize that the president’s choice

may be affected by the preferences of other actors and

151

The Effects of Information on the

Accuracy of Presidential Assessments

of Supreme Court Nominee Preferences

JOHN SZMER AND DONALD R. SONGER, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA

Models of presidential success in the judicial appointment process assume that a president selects a nominee

who will maximize his influence on the Court. The models assume that the president accurately assesses the

preferences of potential nominees. We argue that these perceptions are subject to systematic errors. Specifi-

cally, the amount of information available to the evaluator (the president and his staff) of a Supreme Court

nominee’s policy preferences affects the accuracy of the evaluation. These models assume that the president

and/or his staff can accurately predict the policy preferences of the potential nominees. We argue that the pre-

cision of these assessments is a function of the information available to the president and his staff. We test this

hypothesis using the prior experience of the nominee as a measure of the information available to the presi-

dent and those members of his staff assigned to investigate potential Supreme Court nominees. Using het-

eroskedastic probit, we find a significant relationship between the amount of information (measured as prior

legislative, executive, judicial, and academic experience) and the accuracy of the assessments of the nominees’

preferences. This relationships hold even after controlling for various factors including the salience the presi-

dent attaches to the issues decided by the justice and the relative relationship between the preferences of the

president, Senate, and the remaining sitting justices when the nomination was made.

NOTE: The authors would like to thank Martha Kropf, Melissa Cannon,

Thomas Hansford, and William Jacoby for their invaluable contri-

butions to this article. Also, they would like to thank Jeffrey Segal

and Michael Giles for their helpful comments.

Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 1 (March 2005): pp. 151-160

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