Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Southern California Law Review
Publication Date
1996
Page Number
219
Keywords
Supreme Court voting power, median voter, Banzhaf index, justice coalitions, voting pattern
Disciplines
Judges | Law | Statistics and Probability | Supreme Court of the United States
Abstract
We respond to Professor Lynn A. Baker's criticisms of our article, The Most Dangerous Justice: The Supreme Court at the Bar of Mathematics. Professor Baker fundamentally misunderstands our measure of Supreme Court voting power. Moreover, she erroneously presumes that the "median Justice" wields the bulk of the Court's power. Even if there were a median Justice, it is far from clear whether he would be the Most Dangerous Justice. We conclude with a clarification of the median voter theorem and its implications for the distribution of voting power within the Supreme Court.
Recommended Citation
Paul H. Edelman and Jim Chen,
"Duel" Diligence: Second Thoughts About the Supremes as the Sultans of Swing, 70 Southern California Law Review. 219
(1996)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/faculty-publications/877
Included in
Judges Commons, Statistics and Probability Commons, Supreme Court of the United States Commons