The Bush Imprint on the Supreme Court: Why Conservatives Should Continue to Yearn and Liberals Should Not Fear

∗ Lee Epstein (http://epstein.law.northwestern.edu) is the Beatrice Kuhn Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University; Andrew D. Martin is Professor of Law and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Washington University; Kevin M. Quinn is Associate Professor of Government at Harvard University; Jeffrey A. Segal is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Stony Brook University. We thank Nancy Staudt for her useful comments. For research support, we are grateful to the National Science Foundation and the Beatrice Kuhn Research Fund at Northwestern University School of Law. All the information necessary to replicate the empirical results in this article is located at http://epstein.law.northwestern.edu/research/ChangeOrNot.html houses. 1. Linda Greenhouse, In Steps Big and Small, Supreme Court Moved Right: A 5-4 Dynamic with Kennedy as Linchpin, 156 N.Y. Times A1 (July 1, 2007). Greenhouse continued, “By the time the Roberts court ended its first full term on Thursday, the picture was clear. This was a more conservative court, sometimes muscularly so, sometimes more tentatively, its majority sometimes differing on methodology but agreeing on the outcome in cases big and small.” Id. 2. J. Stephen Breyer, Op. Announcement, Parents Involved in Community Sch. v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1, 127 S. Ct. 2738 (2007) (Justice Breyer included this comment in his oral but not written dissent). (available at http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2006/2006_05_908/opinion/). Minute 32.50 contains the above quote. 3. Joan Biskupic, Roberts Steers Court Right Back to Reagan, USA Today 8A, (June 28, 2008). 4. Nina Totenberg, The Roberts Court and the Role of Precedent, National Public Radio, Morning Edition, http://wsvw.npr.org/templa.tes/story/story.php?storyId=11688820 (July 3, 2007). The full quote is as follows: