Have Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito Moved the Supreme Court to the Right? Ideological Movement on the Supreme Court from 1953 to 2008

Abstract

In 2005 and 2006, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito joined the United States Supreme Court. At that time, many observers of the Court speculated that these appointments would cause the Supreme Court to behave in a more conservative manner. This remains the archetypal understanding of these justices’s impact upon the Court. However, a quantitative evaluation of the Court’s behavior both before and after Roberts and Alito joined the court demonstrates that, in fact, the Court is no more conservative with Roberts and Alito on the bench than it was with their predecessors, Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice O’Connor.