Identifying the median justice on the Supreme Court through multidimensional scaling : Analysis of “ natural courts

Given the fundamental unidimensionality in the data on Supreme Court voting patterns 1951–1993 we observe, we are able to determine the identity of “median” members of each court in a fashion that does not require subjective coding of the extent to which particular cases reflect left-right issues. Also, while the exact numerical values of MDS-obtained locations cannot be compared across different “natural courts”, the positions of Supreme Court justices across their careers relative to the courts on which they served can be traced. Our data show overwhelming quantified evidence of a very strong rightward drift (relative to our MDS defined dimensions) in the composition of the court as we move from the Warren Court to the Burger Court, and again as we move from the Burger Court to the Rehnquist Court.