Looks at what judges actually do. This title focuses on two questions: Do judges appointed by Republican Presidents vote differently from Democratic appointees in ideologically contested cases? And do judges vote differently depending on the ideological leanings of the other judges hearing the same case?

"Recommended." --D. S. Mann, College of Charleston, CHOICE, 5/1/2007 "Recommended for academic and law libraries, as well as court administrators and administrative judges who strive to maintain nonpartisanship on the bench." --Philip Y. Blue, New York State Supreme Court Criminal Branch Law Library, Library Journal, 9/1/2006 "Not only is this a solid piece of research, it also does a remarkable job of translating complex ideas --long floating around in the social sciences --into prose accessible to a broad audience. This is an important service. Plus, the book couldn't come at a better time. Senators (and presidents), for the most part, understand the ideological component of judging but the public seems to need a reminder. ARE JUDGES POLITICAL? provides just that." --Lee Epstein, Northwestern University "ARE JUDGES POLITICAL? is thoughtful and careful. It is a terrific empirical introduction to the politics of judicial decisionmaking, an area that is capturing the imagination of many in the legal academy. The analysis of panel effects, which appear to be as large as partisan effects, is especially interesting." --Jeffrey A. Segal, Stony Brook University "a short, readable, book that gets to implications after only 128 pages of straight-forward, hypothesis-driven, data-mining text. The accessibility of this book makes it a good choice for teachers who want to provoke students to discuss issues on the basis of empirical evidence, and it might lead some students to think about doing this kind of research themselves." -- Law and Politics Book Review "For two decades now U.S. senators have fought fiercely about the appointments of federal appellate judges, all in the belief that the political ideologies of judges affect their decisions. But do they? This dazzling little book answers the question--and the answer is more interesting than we would have thought. ARE JUDGES POLITICAL? will change and deepen the way we think about the law and judges." --Neil Coughlan, Judicial Evaluation Institute, Commonweal, 10/6/2006 "This is a significant book. The judiciary decides many important policy questions in the United States, and in practice the circuit court judiciary is much more important than the Supreme Court. This is evident by the great and growing press and political attention to judicial nominees. ARE JUDGES POLITICAL? greatly informs the debate, with its empirical findings and its discussion of their pragmatic significance." --Frank B. Cross, University of Texas-Austin

"This is a significant book. The judiciary decides many important policy questions in the United States, and in practice the circuit court judiciary is much more important than the Supreme Court. This is evident by the great and growing press and political attention to judicial nominees. ARE JUDGES POLITICAL? greatly informs the debate, with its empirical findings and its discussion of their pragmatic significance." --Frank B. Cross, University of Texas-Austin