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Saturday, September 02, 2006 

Ideological Power Up

University of Chicago Law Professor Cass Sunstein has a short but interesting post on Open University. It mentions something that I remember hearing in passing once about judges...
A few years ago, I was involved in some studies that uncovered a funny fact: When Republican-appointed judges sit on three-judge panels with other Republican appointees, they show unusually conservative voting patterns. So too, Democratic-appointed judges on three-judge panels show especially liberal voting patterns when sitting with fellow Democratic appointees. In short, like-minded judges show a pattern if "ideological amplification."

The presence of even one Republican appointee often makes Democratic appointees much more moderate. Republican appointees often become much more moderate when even a single Democratic appointee is there.
I've been devoting the bulk of my time to reading appeals court opinions since the Supreme Court went into recess. I will have to be much more mindful while reading of which judges are on the panel.

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