Sotomayor: Likely to Rival Ginsburg as Most Liberal Nominee in 40 Years

The National Journal has an article containing an interesting chart that illustrates the perceived ideological leanings of Supreme Court nominees using a system developed by Jeffrey Segal.

Segal will calculate current nominee Sonia Sotomayor's score by continuing to evaluate editorials from five major newspapers; including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, until the full Senate votes. As of now, analysis shows that Sotomayor "likely rivals Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the most liberal Supreme Court nominee of the last 40 years." According to the data, Ginsburg ranks as the 17th most liberal justice since the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, with a score of 0.68 (on a scale of 0-1, with 0 being the most conservative).