The Ideology of John Paul Stevens

i don’t see how the court won’t shift further to the right after someone (kagan) gets appointed, no one as left as stevens is getting passed the senate.

Both of the previous comments are probably right that the next appointment will not be as liberal as Stevens, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything will change in terms of decision-making on the Court. As long as the appointee is to the left of the liberal “rule of four” pivot there is reason to believe that very little will change in terms of what cases are granted cert and the overall outcome of decisions (at least from a perspective that transposes something akin to “pivotal politics” onto the SC).

So, in the end, it probably won’t be too bad for liberals. But, goodness knows that I’ve been wrong before…

Also, I always get a good chuckle out of the fact that Stevens was appointed by two Republicans (Nixon appointed him to the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit; Ford to the SC) and then he turned out to be so liberal (from a 0 to below a -2 in the graph above).