Searching For Justice Scalia: Measuring "Scalia-ness" (tr)

https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=7670680830870070230171070880640041030540500340800450611260050910940000941131200831240110020340320540151130031151190720730651191070410470290741020020950640991000301040510550830960850050031141040910150831120750990 ^ | Jan 27, 2017 | Jeremy Kidd, Riddhi Sohan Dasgupta, Ryan Walters & James Phillips

[Ray76]

During the recent election, then-candidate Trump promised his conservative supporters that he would “appoint judges very much in the mold Justice Scalia.” Given the extended vacancy on the Supreme Court that began with Scalia’s death on February 13, 2016, and the perception that the next appointment to the Court could have a significant effect on the future of U.S. law, it is not surprising that Republicans wanted assurances that their nominee would nominate someone whose jurisprudence would match that of Scalia.

And yet, in previewing President Trump’s potential nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court, the media has been largely focused on the decisions of various judges on his combined shortlist. [] But as easy or understandable as focusing on judicial outcomes is, it’s also just as misguided, given the reality of what judges do and the complexity of what makes a jurist unique (and the empirical tools we have to attempt to measure such).

If one is serious about replacing Justice Scalia with a jurist like him, one should care more about how a potential replacement reached a decision, which will illuminate how a judge approaches the law. This, in turn, will provide a far clearer window into how that judge would behave when elevated to the Supreme Court, and, ironically, the outcomes they would reach. After all, a judge who is merely following the law may reach a “conservative” or “liberal” outcome because that’s what the law requires.

While this level of understanding may seem an impossible task, this study proposes three empirical measures of what made Justice Scalia Justice Scalia, applies those measures to potential nominees, and provides a metric for determining just how Scalia-like they are.

[Ray76]

Full title: Searching For Justice Scalia: Measuring The "Scalia-ness" of The Next Potential Member of The U.S. Supreme Court

This is an interesting analysis of 15 judges from Trump's list. Gorsuch ranks high on the "Scalia-ness Index", but is not the highest.

[Redcitizen]

We need to rank them on a Scalia of one to ten with 10 being the highest.