I Can’t Define Judiciousness,but I Know It when I Don’t See It

Abstract

Scholars frequently argue that public perceptions of judicial nominees are shaped by two competing frames; the judiciousness frame focuses on positive aspects of a nominee that meet expectations of a good judge. The ideological frame depicts judges as political actors and is often deployed against nominees. Drawing on legal scholarship that argues that judiciousness may be easier to measure in its absence, we explore a third frame by focusing on departures from ethical expectations. This frame captures a politically potent way to portray nominees that is distinct from their legal qualifications or ideological identification. Using a conjoint experiment, we find evidence that ideological differences reduce support for judicial nominees and evidence that allegations of injudiciousness are an effective third frame that can be used in confirmation politics. Not only does the public consistently recognize and sanction injudicious behavior, but the severity of sanctions for specific injudicious behaviors varies depending on the ideology of those assessing the nominee. By bridging conceptualizations of judiciousness found in judicial politics and legal scholarship, our results highlight the importance of allegations of unethical behavior in how the public perceives individual nominees and possibly the judiciary as a whole.

Keywords

judicial nominations judiciousness judicial ethics ideology

Federal judicial confirmation hearings provide important opportunities for legislators to strategically frame nominees to shape public opinion. Senators focus on the merits of judicial nominees but there is little consensus regarding what constitutes merit other than “the requisite integrity to serve as federal judges” (Gerhardt, 2003, p. 685). Defining integrity is equally challenging. Instead, “nominees’ ethical lapses are a frequently cited basis for rejecting or opposing many judicial nominations” (Gerhardt, 2003, p. 685). For example, Senator Al Franken attempted to use U.S. Court of Appeals nominee Don Willett’s Twitter history against him, stating:

In 2014, you retweeted this article from Fox News about a transgender girl joining her high school’s softball team. You wrote, ‘Go away, A-Rod’ in your tweet… Do you think it demonstrates good judgment for a man in his late 40s, a sitting [Texas] supreme court justice, to publicly demean and humiliate a seventeen-year old girl on Twitter? (Nominations, 2017).

Similarly, Senator Marsha Blackburn charged U.S. Court of Appeals nominee Andre Mathis with having,

a rap sheet with a laundry list of citations including multiple failures to appear in court. In Tennessee, we expect our judges to respect the law, not disregard it. If Mr. Mathis thought he was above the law before, imagine how he’ll conduct himself… if he’s confirmed as a federal judge (Nominations, 2022).

Studies of judicial confirmation explore what shapes the public’s response to individual nominees. A key perspective in this literature identifies two frames that are used to shape public opinion: the judiciousness frame and the ideological/partisan frame (Gibson & Caldeira, 2009a, 2009b). In the judiciousness frame, supporters of the nominee emphasize positive representations of nominee’s qualifications, temperament, or role orientation because of their symbolic value while opponents draw on the ideological/partisan frame (e.g., Gibson & Caldeira, 2009b). The conceptualization of judiciousness in legal scholarship focuses on norms of judicial ethics (Lubet, 1984; McKoski, 2010; Shaman, 1988). Gerhardt (2005) argues that “integrity and character are easier to measure in their absence than they are positively” (p. 1207), thus it is important to focus on injudiciousness as well as judiciousness. Recent evidence that allegations of unethical behavior lower perceptions of individual judges (Baker & Canelo, 2025; Boston et al., 2023) and the institution (Boston et al., 2023) and that the public ranks moral character highest in desirable characteristics (Krewson and Schroedel 2020) supports this argument. Building on this emerging evidence, we propose that in addition to the judiciousness frame used by supporters and the ideological frame used by opponents, opponents also can employ injudiciousness, a separate and powerful framing tool. To explore this, we provide information on qualifications and ideology, but we also include information on injudiciousness as reflected in behaviors that depart from judicial norms. We employ a conjoint experiment involving hypothetical U.S. Courts of Appeals nominees to investigate these contrasts.

Our findings reaffirm that the ideological frame plays a critical role in shaping support for, and opposition to, hypothetical nominees. Qualifications-based indicators of judiciousness provide limited insight into nominee support. Examples of behaviors that reflect integrity and temperament, especially examples of behaviors that reflect the absence of those desirable characteristics, are powerful predictors of nominee support. The public recognizes and punishes injudicious behavior, often imposing sanctions for injudiciousness that are greater than the sanctions they impose on cross-ideologues. While conservatives treat all types of injudiciousness the same, liberals and moderates punish certain behaviors more severely than others. We uncover no evidence that respondents impose greater punishment for injudicious behavior on cross-ideologues; instead, our findings suggest that under certain conditions, co-ideologue nominees are punished more severely.

Previous studies have relied on contrasting frames of judiciousness, specifically positive portrayals of the nominee’s legal qualifications and temperament, versus ideology. Our findings indicate a third possible frame for understanding judicial nominees—injudiciousness. The injudiciousness frame exists independently from judiciousness and ideology, suggesting its potential as a powerful frame for opponents of judicial nominees. Moreover, consistent and strong reactions to allegations of injudiciousness suggest that the potential for reputational harm to the federal judiciary is great when presidents overlook allegations at the nomination stage and senators heighten or overstate allegations at the confirmation stage. This research provides evidence for the value of incorporating injudiciousness as well as judiciousness and ideology into studies of confirmation politics, especially additional exploration of which types of injudicious behavior do the most harm to assessments of individual nominees and the ramifications for the judiciary as a whole.

1. Assessing Views Toward Judges

Scholars have long characterized Supreme Court confirmations as involving “political and legal contexts in which the transition from the politics of acquiescence to the politics of confrontation has taken place” (Silverstein, 1994, p. 4). This contentiousness has spread to lower federal court nominations, with Whittington (2018) observing, “[s]ince the late 1990s, the odds of a circuit court nomination being confirmed have been little better than a coin flip” (p. 525). The relative impact of political and legal forces shapes much of the debate in the scholarship of judicial nominations and confirmations (Armaly, 2018; Badas & Stauffer, 2018; Carrington & French, 2021; Gimpel & Ringel, 1995; Gimpel & Wolpert, 1995, 1996; Kaslovsky et al., 2021; Krewson & Schroedel, 2020; Ono & Zilis, 2022, 2023; Rogowski & Stone, 2021; Vining & Bitecofer, 2023).

Gibson and Caldeira (2009a) stress that a key component of modern judicial confirmation strategy is “how public opinion will be managed and manipulated” (p. 1). In the context of Supreme Court confirmations, they note that the use of “judicial symbols” or “legitimizing symbols” is prevalent in efforts to frame public opinion (Gibson & Caldeira, 2009a, pp. 7–8). They offer the term judiciousness to encompass the legal factors prevalent in political science discussions of the framing of judicial nominees (Gibson and Caldeira (2009a, 2009b).¹ Their analysis of Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court distinguished between ideological or partisan (political) frames and judiciousness (legal) frames as a means of understanding judicial confirmations (Gibson & Caldeira, 2009b). Subsequent scholarly work implicitly or explicitly employs the distinctions between the ideology/partisan factors and legalistic expectations/judiciousness factors that shape perceptions of judicial nominees. Regardless of how various authors define judiciousness, there is strong, but not universal, consensus that the ideology/partisan frame is separate from the legalistic/judiciousness frame (Chen & Bryan, 2018, 2021; Gibson & Caldeira, 2009a, 2009b; Hoekstra & LaRowe, 2013; Krewson & Owens, 2021, 2022; Krewson & Schroedel, 2020; but see Rivero & Stone, 2025; Rogowski & Stone, 2021). We review the various approaches to the ideological/partisan frame and the judiciousness/legal frame in the sections that follow, consider arguments that the two frames may not be distinct, and propose an additional frame that captures injudiciousness.

1.1. The Ideological/Partisan Frame

Ideological and partisan considerations are commonly used to explore public support for judicial nominees (Badas & Stauffer, 2018; Gimpel & Wolpert, 1996; Vining & Bitecofer, 2023). While scholars note that “partisanship and ideology are theoretically different” (Hoekstra & LaRowe, 2013, p. 44), support for judicial nominees is predicated on shared ideology and/or shared partisanship. As proposed by Gibson and Caldeira (2009b), the ideological/partisan frame is often employed by those opposed to judicial nominees and relies on evaluations of political criteria (p. 153, see also Gibson & Caldeira, 2009a). Efforts to understand the role of the ideology/partisanship frame use party identification (Krewson & Owens, 2021, 2022); ideology (Krewson & Owens, 2021, 2022); or positions or statements on controversial issues such as abortion (Chen & Bryan, 2021; Herlihy & Nelson, 2025; Hoekstra & LaRowe, 2013; Kaslovsky et al., 2021; Rogowski & Stone 2021). The ideological/partisan frame is an important predictor of nominee assessments. Sen (2017) finds that matched partisanship was “the single most important factor predicting respondent opinions” among either strong or leaning partisans even when accounting for differences in qualifications and descriptive characteristics (p. 380).

1.2. Judiciousness

According to Gibson and Caldeira (2009b), proponents of a nominee stress the judiciousness of nominees by emphasizing “judicial qualifications, temperament, and role orientations (e.g., judicial restraintism), typically making extensive use of the potent symbols of judicial legitimacy” (p. 140). Being judged as judicious requires satisfying the “legalistic expectations citizens hold of judges” (Gibson & Caldeira, 2009b, p. 141). Later research exhibits diverse approaches to defining and measuring judiciousness.

1.2.1. Judiciousness/Qualifications

Scholarship that invokes judiciousness often adopts a definition of qualifications rooted in concrete or objective educational and professional accomplishments (e.g., Hoekstra & LaRowe, 2013; Krewson & Owens, 2022; Sen, 2017). These accomplishments cluster in three areas: legal education, professional experience, and interest group ratings.

Indicators of legal education include naming the specific law school that the nominees attended (Hoekstra & LaRowe, 2013; Krewson & Owens, 2021, 2022). Other approaches assign law schools to distinct categories by providing descriptions of the law school such as status and public versus private (Kaslovsky et al., 2021; Rogowski & Stone, 2021) or describing the law school as occupying a particular tier in law school rankings (Sen, 2017).

Another approach provides current or prior work experiences such as judicial experience (Hoekstra & LaRowe, 2013; Kaslovsky et al., 2021; Krewson & Owens, 2021, 2022; Krewson & Schroedel, 2020; Rogowski & Stone, 2021) and employment in various professional settings (Kaslovsky et al., 2021; Rogowski & Stone, 2021; Sen, 2017). Prior elective office is another indicator of qualifications (Krewson & Owens, 2021, 2022; Sen, 2017) although Krewson and Schroedel (2020) classify political experience among political characteristics rather than a legal qualification (p. 1437).

Scholars employ the American Bar Association (ABA) ratings as concrete indicators of qualifications (Hoekstra & LaRowe, 2013; Krewson & Owens, 2021, 2022). The ABA ratings place a nominee in one of three distinct and ordered categories: well qualified, qualified, or not qualified. The underlying elements of the ratings system include some elements associated with less concrete factors such as integrity and temperament. The public, however, only sees three variants of the word qualified, suggesting that there is something concrete to the ratings.

Although scholars employ a variety of measures to reflect qualifications, there appears to be strong consensus that qualifications involve relatively objective or concrete aspects of a nominee’s professional history. There is greater diversity in approaches to defining or measuring the temperament or role orientation aspects of judiciousness.

1.2.2. Judiciousness/Temperament & Role Orientation

Gibson and Caldeira’s (2009b) approach to judiciousness centers on the public’s expectations of a “good judge” (p. 174). Their six item measure is oriented toward role orientation, focusing on whether it is important for a judge to “strictly follow the law,” “appear fair and impartial,” “protect people without power,” remain “independent of president and government,” “respect existing decisions,” and “uphold constitutional values” (Gibson & Caldeira, 2009b, p. 148). Hoekstra and LaRowe (2013) use the same six characteristics of a good judge to construct a measure of perceived judiciousness for hypothetical nominees (p. 48).

Chen and Bryan (2021) and Krewson and Owens (2021, 2022) provide information about behaviors or traits that tap into temperament and role orientation. Chen and Bryan (2021) define judiciousness as temperament, or “how fit a nominee’s personality is for the process of judging” (p. 325). Their treatments focus on a nominee’s “subjective qualifications” such as work ethic and conscientiousness (Chen & Bryan, 2021, p. 328). Krewson and Owens (2022) characterize the judiciousness frame as a “focus on nominees’ qualifications,” seemingly excluding temperament or role orientation from judiciousness (p. 192). Yet, they argue that that one aspect of “proper judging” can be captured in views regarding judicial philosophy (Krewson & Owens, 2021, 2022). Their experimental profiles indicate whether the nominee embraces “living constitutionalism, global outlook, historical practice, moral philosophy, original intent, original meaning, pragmatism, and stare decisis” (Krewson and Owens, 2021, footnote 2).

Krewson and Schroedel (2020) ask participants to rank the importance of two legal characteristics: judicial temperament and judicial philosophy (p. 1437), reflecting the Gibson and Caldeira (2009b) aspects of the judiciousness frame that are not tied to professional qualifications. Moral character is distinct from the legal frame in their conceptualization, but notably, it ranks highest in importance of the seven nominee characteristics (Krewson & Schroedel, 2020, p. 1437). They explicitly explore all three elements of judiciousness: temperament, philosophy (role orientation), and qualifications, but they appear to allow participants to define those terms rather than tying them to specific behaviors or traits.

Finally, while there is strong consensus that judiciousness and ideology occupy separate frames, this consensus is not universal. For example, while Krewson and Owens (2022) recognize the direct relationship between ideology and public attitudes, they also suggest that “judicial philosophy is not entirely a legal characteristic; it certainly has political overtones,” but they are confident that their design isolates the “independent effect of judicial philosophy” (p. 203). Rivero and Stone (2025) argue that public perspectives on “principles of judging” are “not apolitical but instead driven by elite cues and one’s political sophistication” (p. 170). Rogowski and Stone (2021) do not explicitly employ framing that distinguishes between judiciousness and ideology, but their research incorporates both. Their tests of political rhetoric contain a partisan element (Trump vs. Democrats) as well as language about a nominee’s ideology (conservative); training; temperament (character); and ethical record (Rogowski & Stone, 2021, p. 7).

In sum, there is no unified approach to judiciousness in political science scholarship. Judiciousness is treated as a function of concrete or objective qualifications alone, or it incorporates factors such as temperament and role orientation. There are different approaches to defining temperament or role orientation. Studies employ those terms without providing further explanation, or they provide examples of traits and behaviors that reflect different aspects of temperament or role orientation. Although most scholars distinguish between an ideological frame and a judiciousness frame, others argue that it is difficult to separate some aspects of judiciousness from ideological influences.

While judiciousness in political science research often draws on some combination of qualifications, temperament, and role orientation, one approach in the legal profession connects judiciousness to norms of professional ethics. Many of these norms reflect temperament and role orientation. Shaman (1988) notes, “judges must be competent and ethical, and their actions must foster respect for their decisions as well as for the judiciary as a whole” (p. 1). The perception that judges must be competent and ethical is critical to the legitimacy of the judiciary. All fifty states and the lower federal courts have adopted codes of conduct, encouraging “judges to avoid any professional or personal conduct that could be perceived to damage the ideal image of a judge as an impartial decisionmaker and model citizen” (McKoski, 2010, p. 1925). Focusing on adherence to codes of ethics may aid our understanding of the importance of judiciousness in judicial nominations because the codes define ways judges should act to maintain their integrity. The public, however, expects judges to behave ethically and thus, may struggle to distinguish among behaviors that are consistent with ethics codes. Legal scholarship recognizes this dilemma. Gerhardt (2005) notes that “integrity and character are easier to measure in their absence than they are positively” (p. 1207). Unethical behavior is, at its heart, injudicious behavior.

1.2.3. An Injudiciousness Frame

Gibson and Caldeira (2009b) portray judiciousness as a positive frame employed by supporters of a nominee and state that “on occasion, the opponents will take issue with the nominee’s judiciousness; but more likely is an attempt to substitute a frame defined by political considerations such as ideology, partisanship, and policy” (p. 143). The public hears allegations of injudiciousness regardless of the underlying motivations. Gerhardt (2001) recognizes the political value of allegations of injudiciousness. The public is likely to encounter these allegations due to “the evolving norms of modern media coverage of political events…” with greater coverage of “soft news (which consists largely of speculation, commentary, and preoccupation with scandal). The more outlandish the claims made against a nominee or public official, the more likely they will get coverage” (p. 1707). Thus, allegations of injudiciousness provide a third frame for opponents to employ that is distinct from the judiciousness frame used by supporters or an ideological frame used by detractors and such allegations are likely to reach the public.

The effects of injudicious behavior on confirmation politics have received limited scholarly attention, but judicial politics research is shifting focus, especially in light of recent allegations of ethical misconduct among judges (e.g., Baker & Canelo, 2025; Boston et al., 2023; Carrington & French, 2021; Krewson et al., 2024). Baker and Canelo (2025) consider evaluations of judicial candidates, comparing discriminatory behavior that threatens individuals based on race, ethnicity, and gender to efforts to gain preferential treatment during traffic stops. Respondents perceive potential judges engaged in discriminatory behavior as threats to the rights of members of the targeted group and as less likely to rule fairly in other cases as well (Baker & Canelo, 2025). Boston et al. (2023) explore diffuse and specific support in three different judicial contexts, one of which focuses on judicial nominees. Nominees with behaviors involving sexual harassment, failure to recuse, and failure to pay taxes have lower support than a nominee whose profile contains no information about the judge’s behavior (Boston et al., 2023, p. 198).²

1.3. Lessons from Political Scandal Literature

Studies of scandal among elected officials can inform explorations into injudiciousness. Scholarly inquiries involving elected officials juxtapose different types of scandals, such as adultery, corruption, financial, or political misconduct. The public responds differently depending on seriousness of allegations (Costa et al., 2020) and whether a scandal involves the abuse of power (Doherty et al., 2011). Additionally, respondent ideology and partisanship shape reactions to different types of scandal (Saxton & Barnes, 2022a, 2022b; Stark & Collignon, 2022). For example, conservatives are more likely to punish sex scandals than liberals, but there is no meaningful difference in liberal and conservative reactions to corruption (Saxton & Barnes, 2022a). Alternatively, Stark and Collignon (2022) obtain a stronger Democratic response to sexual assault and harassment allegations.

Individuals also judge scandalous behavior differently depending on the interactions of factors including their own partisan identity, the type of scandal, the partisan identity of the politician, and the positions of the politician (e.g., Anduiza et al., 2013; Walter & Redlawsk, 2019). Partisans minimize the behavior of co-partisans facing sexual harassment and assault allegations (Craig & Cossette, 2022) or potentially impeachable offenses (Cortina & Rottinghaus, 2017). Alternatively, the nature of the scandal is important if the public has expectations for a particular politician. Politicians are punished more severely when their actions are seen as hypocritical, contradicting a previously stated position, or deeper set of values associated with their party (Bhatti et al., 2013; McDermott et al., 2015).

The political scandal literature demonstrates the value in considering different types of scandal. There is, however, disagreement about what shapes the public response to scandal. Public attitudes may be shaped by the kind of scandal (e.g., sexual versus financial) or by whether the scandal violates some underlying value (e.g., abuse of power) in the response. There are also conflicting findings when accounting for ideology of participants and the politician. What we can draw from these studies is that the type of the scandal matters and that ideology is an important factor to consider.

2. Design and Expectations

Lower federal court judges, particularly those on the U.S. Courts of Appeals, have substantial impact on the American legal system. The Supreme Court grants certiorari in fewer than 100 cases a year, thus, the U.S. Courts of Appeals are the de facto court of last resort for the vast majority of cases in the federal system. The nomination and confirmation process for lower courts has followed the trends observed in the Supreme Court process. This includes prioritizing ideology in lower court nominees (e.g., Epstein et al., 2006; Goldman, 1997; Norris, 2020) and greater scrutiny of these nominees by the Senate (Binder & Maltzman, 2009; Hartley & Holmes, 2002). Subsequently, this has led to more contentious hearings (Dancey et al., 2020; King et al., 2022; Steigerwalt, 2010; Whittington, 2018) as well as increased attention from interest groups (e.g., Scherer et al., 2008) and the president (e.g., Holmes, 2008). Lower court nominees receive some attention (e.g., Herlihy & Nelson, 2025; Hoekstra & LaRowe, 2013), but, given the changing dynamic in lower court nominations and confirmations, there is value in developing a greater understanding of public evaluations of nominees to the lower courts.

We employ a conjoint experiment in which participants are provided profiles that display eight attributes regarding potential nominees to the U.S. Court of Appeals.³ This type of experiment has proven valuable in the judicial nomination literature (Badas & Stauffer, 2019; Krewson & Owens, 2021, 2022; Ono & Zilis, 2022, 2023; Sen, 2017). An example of a profile for a hypothetical nominee appears in Figure 1.⁴

Figure 1.

Sample of Hypothetical Nominee Profile

Participants were provided with language that described the nomination and confirmation process and asked to evaluate hypothetical nominees.⁵ They then viewed a profile of each nominee that included four types of information. Consistent with other studies, we provided demographic information (race, age, and gender) about the nominee.⁶ Other information reflects the contrasting frames of ideology, typically deployed by opponents, and judiciousness, an approach used by supporters. To indicate ideology, participants were told whether the nominee was conservative, moderate, or liberal. Participants were also given multiple indicators of judiciousness. The most consistent approach to judiciousness relies on concrete measures of a nominee’s qualifications. Thus, we included law school, rank in law school class, and prior judicial experience. We approached temperament and role orientation by providing descriptions of behaviors attributed to the nominee. These behaviors are described in more detail below.

We developed a list of plausible and behaviors that might receive media attention and embed these in a section of the profile called “Most Recent Newspaper Story.” The treatments appear in Table 1.⁷ The baseline for judiciousness is a fundamental judicial activity–the act of presiding over a high-profile case. We include four other stories in the judiciousness category. All four stories describe ethically permissible behavior, but two stories highlight behavior that may divide public reaction: the nominee’s spouse giving a speech at a legal advocacy group and the nominee running a Twitter account for their dog. These stories reflect two issues that have gained national attention. Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni Thomas, received scrutiny because of her activism in conservative political and legal circles (e.g., Boburg & Brown, 2023; Brown et al., 2023; Kroll & Surgey, 2024). The nominee who runs a Twitter account for their dog reflects a general trend related to social media engagement by judges (e.g., Browning, 2021; Gray, 2016; Wegman, 2014).

Table 1.

Attribute Values for Judicial Behavior

Judiciousness:	Injudiciousness/Off-bench:	Injudiciousness/On-bench:
Ongoing coverage of a high-profile court case	Cited for public intoxication at a restaurant while on vacation	Hosted holiday party where alcohol was served in the courtroom
Gave a commencement address at their undergraduate alma mater	Video of them yelling at store clerk was shared on social media	Yelled at an attorney appearing before them in court
Ribbon cutting ceremony at new courthouse	Spouse filed for divorce alleging nominee’s involvement in an extramarital affair	Romantically involved with a subordinate who works with them in court
Spouse spoke at fundraiser for legal advocacy group	Old Facebook posts that used racial stereotypes surface	Told a joke that relied on racial stereotypes in courtroom
Runs a Twitter account for their dog	Investigated for inflating asset information on mortgage application	Heard case involving a company where their sibling is on the board of directors

We also include stories that allude to injudicious behavior. As noted by Gibson and Caldeira (2009b), opponents of a nominee may employ allegations of injudicious behavior as a substitute for partisan or ideological disagreement (p. 143). But as legal scholars note, if judiciousness focuses on the integrity and propriety of judges, it is easier to identify when it is lacking or missing (Gerhardt, 2005, p. 1207). Even if allegations of injudicious behavior are driven by ideological or partisan motivations, the allegations may play an independent role in shaping perceptions of nominees. We explore an injudiciousness frame by introducing five areas in which unethical conduct may occur: alcohol consumption, ill temperament, sexual relationships, racial hostility, and financial matters. Each behavior is presented in an on- and off-the-bench context to vary its seriousness.

Respondents evaluated each nominee profile on three criteria, including degree of support for the nominee, level of trust in the nominee’s ability to reach impartial decisions, and perceived level of qualifications (Kaslovsky et al., 2021, p. 589). Participants used a five-point scale for each criterion.

2.1. Expectations

The effect of a nominee’s ideology on public assessments is clear, especially when controlling for the ideology of the respondent (Chen & Bryan, 2021; Herlihy & Nelson, 2025; Hoekstra & LaRowe, 2013; Kaslovsky et al., 2021; Krewson & Owens, 2021, 2022; Rogowski & Stone 2021). We anticipate that respondents will assess co-ideologues more positively and assess nominees who do not share their ideology more negatively.⁸

We expect that participants, regardless of ideology, will recognize injudicious behavior and regard all ten examples of injudiciousness more negatively than the baseline of presiding over a high-profile case. In addition, ideology potentially shapes responses to unethical behavior in three ways. First, within an ideological group, members of that group may react more strongly to some behaviors than other behaviors. Second, we draw on Saxton and Barnes (2022a, 2022b) and Stark and Collignon (2022) and expect that members of different ideological groups will respond differently to the same behavior. Given the novelty of our inquiry, we offer no a priori expectations about which types of injudicious behavior will emerge as more problematic for members of a particular ideological group or about how members of different ideological groups will respond to the same type of injudiciousness.

Third, we consider that the co-ideologue status of nominees and respondents will result in different consequences for injudiciousness. Shared ideological identity matters in how and whether elected representatives are sanctioned (e.g., Anduiza et al., 2013; Walter & Redlawsk, 2019). The findings of these works are not conclusive. Some suggest that the negative impact of scandal will be mitigated when the respondent and hypothetical nominee share the same ideology (e.g., Cortina & Rottinghaus, 2017; Craig & Cossette, 2022). Others suggest co-ideologues will be sanctioned more severely (e.g., Bhatti et al., 2013; McDermott et al., 2015). Based on the divergence in findings, we expect that co-ideologues will be sanctioned differently than cross-ideologues but do not hypothesize whether sanctions will be more or less severe.

3. Estimating Support for Hypothetical U.S. Courts of Appeals Nominees

The experiment launched on the CloudResearch platform in August 2023. The 1,000 survey participants were restricted to U.S. citizens and matched to census categories on race, gender, age, and ethnicity.⁹ Each respondent self-reported ideology on a seven-point scale: extremely conservative, conservative, slightly conservative, moderate or middle of the road, slightly liberal, liberal, or extremely liberal.¹⁰ Each participant viewed profiles of attributes for eight hypothetical nominees, offering the opportunity for a maximum of 8,000 responses on each of the three assessment criteria (support, trust, and qualifications).¹¹ The results for all three assessment criteria are quite similar, therefore we restrict our discussion to support for the nominee.¹² Participants rated each hypothetical nominee on a scale of 1 to 5 from strongly oppose to strongly support.

We turn our attention to the factors of primary interest: distinguishing injudiciousness from judiciousness and ideology.¹³ Figure 2 illustrates the results of three models that isolate each ideological group in order to assess their ability to distinguish injudicious behavior from judicious behavior, their sensitivity to the type of alleged behavior relative to other behaviors, and the impact of injudicious behavior relative to ideological differences.

Figure 2.

Support for Hypothetical Nominee: Ideology and Behavior

Consistent with our expectation that ideological alignment will drive responses, liberals, moderates, and conservatives express higher support for nominees who are co-ideologues and lower support for nominees outside their ideological group. Moreover, among liberals and conservatives, the magnitude of the negative response to cross-ideologues is substantially larger than the magnitude of the positive response to co-ideologues. Reliance on the ideological frame during the confirmation process can motivate those inclined to support, but it can have an even larger impact on those inclined to oppose.

Using presiding over a high-profile case as the baseline, we find little evidence that support for a nominee is sensitive to other behaviors that are ethically permissible, even those that may divide public reaction. This finding holds regardless of participant ideology except for the weak negative result among conservatives for a Twitter account for a dog. In contrast, all ten news stories indicating injudiciousness significantly reduce support for nominees regardless of participant ideology. Notable differences in sensitivity to the types of injudicious behavior emerge among the three ideological groups.¹⁴

Conservative respondents demonstrate lower support for nominees associated with any behavior that indicates injudiciousness. The magnitude of the sanction is similar across all ten behaviors. Among moderates, some behaviors are more damaging than others. A nominee who has yelled at an attorney receives a statistically significant but relatively small reduction in support. Moderates sanction racial stereotypes so severely that support for those judges is significantly lower than support for the yelling judge.

Liberal respondents also show sensitivity to the type of injudicious behavior. A courtroom party with alcohol or yelling at an attorney carry small sanctions. In contrast, allegations of a romance with a subordinate, a temper flare-up with a store clerk, and both ways of employing racial stereotypes have large negative effects on support. Moreover, the sanctions are large enough to be significantly larger than the sanctions associated with courtroom parties and yelling at an attorney.

As noted above, the ideological frame shapes support for nominees, with greater costs associated with being a cross-ideologue than benefits for being a co-ideologue. Among conservatives, the effects of all forms of injudicious behavior are the same as the effects of being a liberal nominee. For conservatives, a liberal nominee with no allegations of injudiciousness and a moderate nominee with any allegations of unethical behavior are equally undeserving of support. For moderates, the injudiciousness frame is important. Sanctions for most types of injudicious behavior are greater than the sanction for being a liberal or conservative. Among liberals, the ideological frame generally mirrors that of conservatives. Liberals respond to some items within the injudiciousness frame even more critically than they respond to conservative nominees. Sanctions for allegations of a workplace romance, yelling at a clerk, or embracing racist stereotypes are larger than the sanction for being a conservative nominee. A moderate who commits any of these four kinds of injudiciousness is less worthy of support than a conservative. Conversely, a moderate who has an affair (or commits any of the other remaining acts) earns as much support as a judicious conservative nominee.

The separate model estimations for each ideological group that are portrayed in Figure 2 demonstrate the importance of both the ideological frame and the injudiciousness frame. Each ideological group prefers co-ideologues and punishes cross-ideologues. Each ideological group recognizes and sanctions injudiciousness. Among moderates and liberals, some allegations of injudiciousness are even more potent than ideological differences.

3.1. Ideological Responses to Types of Injudiciousness

We now present an interactive model to compare responses to the same type of behavior across the three ideological groups rather than within an ideological group. Figure 3 illustrates point estimates of predicted support for a nominee based on the interaction of respondents’ ideology with each of the stories.

Figure 3.

Ideological Differences in Predicted Support for Hypothetical Nominee

Four examples of injudicious behavior result in levels of predicted support that are different among members of different ideological groups.¹⁵ First, liberal and conservative respondents perceive the seriousness of using racial stereotypes differently. The predicted level of support for among liberals for a nominee who told a racial joke in court is significantly lower than the predicted level of support among conservatives. Similarly, the predicted level of support among liberals for nominees who employed a racial stereotype on Facebook is lower than the predicted level of support among conservatives.

Responses do not always fall neatly along the liberal-conservative divide. Liberals punish a romance with a subordinate more severely than moderates. A spouse’s speech before a legal advocacy group suggests a divide between moderates and conservatives. Even though a speech such as this is likely not a violation of ethics codes, responses among moderates trend far enough in a positive direction, and far enough in a negative direction for conservatives, that a statistically significant difference emerges between the two groups. This suggests that some behaviors may draw opposing reactions from members of different ideological groups.

3.2. Sanctioning Co- and Cross-Ideologues

Our final inquiry turns to whether individuals impose greater sanctions for injudiciousness on potential nominees who are co-ideologues or cross-ideologues by estimating models interacting co-ideologue status and recent news story. Previous results, discussed in conjunction with Figure 2, clearly demonstrate that members of each ideological group give greater support to co-ideologues. Figure 4 illustrates the change in support for co-ideologues and cross-ideologues for all types of injudiciousness.¹⁶ We note a general trend that co-ideologues experience a greater reduction in support for every type of injudiciousness than cross-ideologues experience. However, only a Facebook post employing a racial stereotype and losing temper with a store clerk resulted in statistically significant differences in the punishment imposed on co-ideologues and cross-ideologues.

Figure 4.

Predicted Change in Support by Co-ideologue Status

Figure 5 focuses on instances in which there are significant differences in the punishment imposed on co-ideologues and cross-ideologues. Our starting point is predicted support for a co-ideologue with news coverage of a high-profile case, which is 4.19 on a five-point scale. Each subsequent example shows predicted support for different hypothetical nominees and apportions the difference in support to cross-ideologue status, the sanction for injudiciousness, or both. For example, the predicted level of support for a cross ideologue who received news coverage of a high-profile case is 3.33. We obtain the ideological cost of being a cross-ideologue, which is .86, by subtracting that value from the predicted support for a co-ideologue with the same story (4.19 points). Predicted support for co-ideologues with a racist Facebook post is 2.68—a sanction of 1.51 points from the baseline story. Predicted support for a cross-ideologue with the same allegation is 2.33, but that difference of 1.86 is partly due to cross-ideologue status (.86) and partly due to the sanction for the Facebook post (1.0). Thus, the co-ideologue sanction for a racist Facebook post is greater than the cross-ideologue sanction for the same behavior (1.51 versus 1.0).

Figure 5.

Predicted support

Predicted support for a co-ideologue who yells at a store clerk is 2.93, a sanction of 1.26 points compared to a co-ideologue who receives news coverage of a high-profile case. The predicted value of support for a cross-ideologue who yells at a store clerk is 2.49 points, which is depressed in part by the cross-ideologue sanction (.86 points) and an additional .83-point reduction as punishment for the alleged behavior. Co-ideologues have farther to fall, and our results indicate that they do fall farther.

4. Discussion and Conclusions

This research reinforces existing knowledge and presents new findings regarding the factors that shape public assessments of judicial nominees. Consistent with previous scholarship, the ideological frame is an important part of nominee assessment. Members of ideological groups assess those who share their ideology positively and those from other ideological groups negatively. We find little evidence that many of the traditionally employed concrete markers of judiciousness, such as education and prior experience, shape support. We offer new insight into the public’s ability to recognize and sanction injudicious behavior. When presented with descriptions of actions that suggest bias or poor temperament, the public successfully distinguishes these behaviors from the baseline of presiding over a high-profile case. All variables reflecting injudiciousness are negatively signed and statistically significant across all three ideological groups. These results indicate the presence of a third frame for understanding the public’s assessments of court nominees.

Conservatives consistently provide less support for potential nominees with ethics allegations, but they do not distinguish among any of these behaviors. Moderates sanction all types of injudicious behavior but are most sensitive to stories that invoke racist stereotypes. Liberals sanction several types of injudiciousness more severely than yelling at an attorney but sanction racial stereotyping most severely of all. Ideology clearly shapes individuals’ perceptions of injudiciousness. This echoes findings in the broader scandal literature demonstrating that responses to different types of scandal are conditioned by respondent ideology (Saxton and Barnes, 2022a, 2022b).

Further evidence that ideology shapes responses to judiciousness emerges when contrasting across ideological groups rather than within them. Differences in the severity of sanctions emerge between liberal and conservative respondents when examining stories that involve racial stereotypes. Not all the differences, however, reflect a liberal-conservative divide; moderates and liberals respond to subordinate romance allegations differently.

The findings regarding co-ideologues lend support to the argument that hypocrisy or actions counter to a respondent’s partisan or ideological values are punished more severely (Bhatti et al., 2013; McDermott et al., 2015). There is a general trend of a greater reduction in support for co-ideologues compared to cross-ideologues across all stories of injudicious behavior. Future research is needed to understand why some behaviors result in greater sanctions for co-ideologues.

Judiciousness and ideology are key to understanding the frames that public receives and uses to assess nominees. In the contentious politics surrounding federal judicial nominations, supporters emphasize judiciousness by focusing on a nominee’s education and professional experience. They also stress that the nominee possesses the professional integrity necessary to hold a lifetime judgeship, often relying on the more abstract ideas of judiciousness such as temperament, fairness, and commitment to judicial norms. Our results demonstrate that public support for nominees is partly determined by judiciousness, whether it is signaled by experience, education, or ethically permissible behaviors.

Opponents of a nominee may have a more difficult time framing educational and professional factors in a negative light. Relying on an ideological frame to discredit a nominee is an effective strategy. Opponents can further weaken support for a nominee by employing an injudiciousness frame, claiming that behavior in the nominee’s past behavior is evidence that a nominee lacks temperament or professional integrity. Allegations of sexual assault, sexual harassment, suspect financial arrangements, disregard for the law, and treatment of those less powerful have emerged in judicial confirmation hearings at all levels of the federal judiciary. The public’s ability to recognize and sanction alleged injudicious behavior is evident, although the sanctions for specific allegations differ across ideologies. While our study focuses on hypothetical nominees, the results underscore the political potency of such allegations. Future research should further consider the implications, for individual judges and entire federal judiciary, of ignoring or politicalizing allegations of unethical behavior during judicial selection and confirmation.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental Material - I Can’t Define Judiciousness, but I Know It when I Don’t See It

Supplemental Material for I Can’t Define Judiciousness, but I Know It when I Don’t See It by Virginia A. Hettinger, Allyson C. Yankle in Journal of Law & Empirical Analysis.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Talbot Andrews, Alex Badass, Sara Benesh, Paul Herrnson, Christopher Krewson, Wendy Martinek, and participants in the University of Connecticut Political Science Colloquium for their helpful suggestions. All errors remain our responsibility.

ORCID iDs

Virginia A. Hettinger

Allyson C. Yankle

Consent to Participate

Participants consented to participate at the beginning of the survey after reading an information page approved by the IRB.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the University of Connecticut, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences 2023 Summer Funding Initiative.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

IRB Approval

University of Connecticut IRB X23-0385 approved on July 6, 2023. Collaboration agreement approved by Radford University on July 10, 2023.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Notes

References

Anduiza

Gallego

Muñoz

(2013). Turning a blind eye. Comparative Political Studies, 46(12), 1664–1692. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414013489081

Armaly

M. T.

(2018). Politicized nominations and public attitudes toward the supreme court in the polarization era. Justice System Journal, 39(3), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/0098261X.2017.1370403

Armaly

M. T.

Krewson

C. N.

Lane

E. A.

(2025). The influence of descriptive representation on support for judicial nominees and the US Supreme Court. Political Behavior, 47, 661–687. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-024-09966-2

Badas

Stauffer

K. E.

(2018). Someone like me: Descriptive representation and support for supreme court nominees. Political Research Quarterly, 71(1), 127–142. https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912917724006

Badas

Stauffer

K. E.

(2019). Voting for women in nonpartisan and partisan elections. Electoral Studies, 57, 245–255. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2018.10.004Getrightsandcontent

Baker

M. N.

Canelo

K. S.

(2025). Judges behaving badly: Judicial misconduct and a threat to rights. Journal of Experimental Political Science, 12(1), 151–160. https://doi.org/10.1017/XPS.2024.8

Bansak

Hainmueller

Hopkins

D. J.

Yamamoto

(2018). The number of choice tasks and survey satisficing in conjoint experiments. Political Analysis, 26(1), 112–119. https://doi.org/10.1017/pan.2017.40

Bhatti

Hansen

K. M.

Olsen

A. L.

(2013). Political hypocrisy: The effect of political scandals on candidate evaluations. Acta Politica, 48(4), 408–428. https://doi.org/10.1057/ap.2013.6

Binder

S. A.

Maltzman

(2009). Advice and dissent: The struggle to shape the federal judiciary (1st ed.). Brookings Institution Press.

10.

Boburg

Brown

(2023, March 28). Activist group led by Ginni Thomas received nearly $600,000 in anonymous donations. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/03/28/ginni-thomas-crowdsourcers-anonymous-donations/

11.

Boston

Kassow

B. J.

Masood

A. S.

Miller

D. R.

(2023). Your honor’s misdeeds: The consequences of judicial scandal on specific and diffuse support. PS: Political Science & Politics, 56(2), 195–200. https://doi.org/10.1017/S104909652200138X

12.

Brown

Boburg

O’Connell

(2023, May 4). Judicial activist directed fees to Clarence Thomas’s wife, urged ‘no mention of Ginni’. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/05/04/leonard-leo-clarence-ginni-thomas-conway/

13.

Browning

J. G.

(2021). When all that twitters is not told: Ethical risks in judicial use of social media. The Judges’ Journal, 60(4), 28–31.

14.

Carrington

N. T.

French

(2021). One bad apple spoils the bunch: Kavanaugh and change in institutional support for the supreme court. Social Science Quarterly, 102(4), 1484–1495. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12983

15.

Chen

Bryan

(2021). The legal double standard: Gender, personality information, and the evaluation of supreme court nominees. Justice System Journal, 42(3-4), 325–340. https://doi.org/10.1080/0098261X.2021.1967231

16.

Chen

P. G.

Bryan

A. C.

(2018). Judging the ‘vapid and hollow charade’: Citizen evaluations and the candor of U.S. supreme court nominees. Political Behavior, 40(2), 495–520. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-017-9411-y

17.

Cortina

Rottinghaus

(2017). Does partisanship stop at scandal’s edge? Partisan resiliency and the survival of political scandal. American Review of Politics, 36(1), 2–29. https://doi.org/10.15763/issn.2374-779X.2017.36.1.2-29

18.

Costa

Briggs

Chahal

Fried

Garg

Kriz

Lei

Milne

Slayton

(2020). How partisanship and sexism influence voters’ reactions to political #MeToo scandals. Research & Politics, 7(3), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168020941727

19.

Craig

S. C.

Cossette

P. S.

(2022). Eye of the beholder: Partisanship, identity, and the politics of sexual harassment. Political Behavior, 44(2), 749–777. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-020-09631-4

20.

Dancey

L. M.

Nelson

K. R.

Ringsmuth

E. M.

(2020). It’s not personal: Politics and policy in lower court confirmation hearings. University of Michigan Press. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.10020712

21.

Doherty

Dowling

C. M.

Miller

M. G.

(2011). Are financial or moral scandals worse? It depends. PS: Political Science & Politics, 44(4), 749–757. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096511001247

22.

Epstein

Lindstädt

Segal

J. A.

Westerland

(2006). The changing dynamics of senate voting on supreme court nominees. The Journal of Politics, 68(2), 296–307. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2508.2006.00407.x

23.

Gerhardt

M. J.

(2001). Norm theory and the future of the federal appointments process. Duke Law Journal, 50(6), 1687–1715. https://doi.org/10.2307/1373045

24.

Gerhardt

M. J.

(2003). Judicial selection as war. UC Davis Law Review, 36(3), 667–693.

25.

Gerhardt

M. J.

(2005). Judicial selection by the numbers. Florida State Law Review, 32(4), 1197–1236.

26.

Gibson

J. L.

Caldeira

G. A.

(2009a). Citizens, courts, and confirmations: Positivity theory and the judgments of the American people. Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt7s49r.9

27.

Gibson

J. L.

Caldeira

G. A.

(2009b). Confirmation politics and the legitimacy of the U.S. supreme court: Institutional loyalty, positivity bias, and the Alito nomination. American Journal of Political Science, 53(1), 139–155. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2008.00362.x

28.

Gimpel

J. G.

Ringel

L. S.

(1995). Understanding court nominee evaluation and approval: Mass opinion in the Bork and Thomas cases. Political Behavior, 17(2), 135–153. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01498811

29.

Gimpel

J. G.

Wolpert

R. M.

(1995). Rationalizing support and opposition to supreme court nominations: The role of credentials. Polity, 28(1), 67–82. https://doi.org/10.2307/3235185

30.

Gimpel

J. G.

Wolpert

R. M.

(1996). Opinion-holding and public attitudes toward controversial supreme court nominees. Political Research Quarterly, 49(1), 163–176. https://doi.org/10.1177/106591299604900110

31.

Goldman

(1997). Picking federal judge: Lower court selection from Roosevelt through Reagan. Yale University Press.

32.

Gray

(2016). The troubles of the social judge. Judicature, 100(2), 5–6. https://judicature.duke.edu/articles/the-troubles-of-the-social-judge/

33.

Hainmueller

Hopkins

D. J.

Yamamoto

(2014). Causal inference in conjoint analysis: Understanding multidimensional choices via stated preference experiments. Political Analysis, 22(1), 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1093/pan/mpt024

34.

Hartley

R. E.

Holmes

L. M.

(2002). The increasing senate scrutiny of lower federal court nominees. Political Science Quarterly, 117(2), 259–278. https://doi.org/10.2307/798183

35.

Herlihy

M. T.

Nelson

M. J.

(2025). Judging judicial nominees. Political Research Quarterly, 78(4), 1165–1181. https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129251350143

36.

Hoekstra

LaRowe

(2013). Judging nominees: An experimental test of the impact of qualifications and divisiveness on public support for nominees to the federal courts. Justice System Journal, 34(1), 38–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/0098261X.2013.10768028

37.

Holmes

L. M.

(2008). Why “go public”? Presidential use of nominees to the U.S. courts of appeals. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 38(1), 110–122. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-5705.2007.02631.x

38.

Hume

R. J.

(2017). Ethics and accountability on the US supreme court: An analysis of recusal practices. State University of New York Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.18253283.6

39.

Kaslovsky

Rogowski

J. C.

Stone

A. R.

(2021). Descriptive representation and public support for supreme court nominees. Political Science Research and Methods, 9(3), 583–598. https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2019.59

40.

King

J. M.

McAndrews

Ostrander

(2022). President Trump and the politics of judicial nominations. Justice System Journal, 43(4), 524–543. https://doi.org/10.1080/0098261X.2022.2124897

41.

Krewson

C. N.

Owens

R. J.

(2021). Public support for judicial philosophies: Evidence from a conjoint experiment. Journal of Law and Courts, 9(1), 89–110. https://doi.org/10.1086/712649

42.

Krewson

C. N.

Owens

R. J.

(2022). How state judicial selection methods may influence views of US supreme court nominees: Evidence from a conjoint experiment. Journal of Law and Courts, 10(2), 189–212. https://doi.org/10.1086/715547

43.

Krewson

C. N.

Schoenherr

J. A.

Shieh

(2024). Did you hear about Clarence Thomas? Measuring public attention toward the supreme court. Research & Politics, 11(2), Article 20531680241263709. https://doi.org/10.1177/20531680241263709

44.

Krewson

C. N.

Schroedel

J. R.

(2020). Public views of the U.S. supreme court in the aftermath of the Kavanaugh confirmation. Social Science Quarterly, 101(4), 1430–1441. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12820

45.

Kroll

Surgey

(2024, September 4). Ginni Thomas privately praised group working against supreme court reform: “Thank you so, so much”. ProPublica. https://www.propublica.org/article/ginni-thomas-email-scotus-ethics-reform-first-liberty-institute

46.

Lubet

(1984). Judicial ethics and private lives. Northwestern University Law Review, 79(5), 983–1008.

47.

McDermott

M. L.

Schwartz

Vallejo

(2015). Talking the talk but not walking the walk. American Politics Research, 43(6), 952–974. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X15577830

48.

McKoski

R. J.

(2010). Judicial discipline and the appearance of impropriety: What the public sees is what the judge gets. Minnesota Law Review, 94(6), 1914–1996.

49.

Nominations: Hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee . (2017). 115^th congress [video]. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/committee-activity/hearings/11/15/2017/nominations

50.

Nominations: Hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee . (2022). 117^th congress [video]. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/committee-activity/hearings/01/05/2022/nominations

51.

Norris

(2020). Judicial nominations to the courts of appeals and the strategic decision to elevate. Justice System Journal, 41(2), 118–138. https://doi.org/10.1080/0098261X.2020.1734510

52.

Ono

Zilis

M. A.

(2022). Ascriptive characteristics and perceptions of impropriety in the rule of law: Race, gender, and public assessments of whether judges can be impartial. American Journal of Political Science, 66(1), 43–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12599

53.

Ono

Zilis

M. A.

(2023). Do Americans perceive diverse judges as inherently biased? Politics, Groups, and Identities, 11(2), 335–344. https://doi.org/10.1080/21565503.2021.1960867

54.

Rivero

A. H.

Stone

A. R.

(2025). The American public’s attitudes over how judges use legal principles to make decisions. Political Science Research and Methods, 13(1), 167–182. https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2023.53

55.

Rogowski

J. C.

Stone

A. R.

(2021). How political contestation over judicial nominations polarizes Americans’ attitudes toward the supreme court. British Journal of Political Science, 51(3), 1251–1269. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123419000383

56.

Saxton

G. W.

Barnes

T. D.

(2022a). Sex and ideology: Liberal and conservative responses to scandal. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion, and Parties, 32(2), 396–407. https://doi.org/10.1080/17457289.2020.1800713

57.

Saxton

G. W.

Barnes

T. D.

(2022b). Sex and corruption in congress: How the nature of the scandal shapes backlash from voters. In Pomante

M. J.

II. (Ed.), Scandal and corruption in congress (pp. 193–212). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80117-119-920221017

58.

Scherer

Bartels

B. L.

Steigerwalt

(2008). Sounding the fire alarm: The role of interest groups in the lower federal court confirmation process. The Journal of Politics, 70(4), 1026–1039. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022381608081036

59.

Sen

(2017). How political signals affect public support for judicial nominations: Evidence from a conjoint experiment. Political Research Quarterly, 70(2), 374–393. https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912917695229

60.

Shaman

J. M.

(1988). Judicial ethics. Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, 2(1), 1–20.

61.

Silverstein

(1994). Judicious choices: The new politics of supreme court confirmations (1st ed.). W.W. Norton & Co.

62.

Stark

Collignon

(2022). Sexual predators in contest for public office: How the American electorate responds to news of allegations of candidates committing sexual assault and harassment. Political Studies Review, 20(3), 329–352. https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929921995333

63.

Steigerwalt

(2010). Battle over the bench: Senators, interest groups, and lower court confirmations (1st ed.). University of Virginia Press.

64.

Vining

R. L.

Bitecofer

(2023). Change and continuity in citizens’ evaluations of supreme court nominees. American Politics Research, 51(1), 57–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X221119402

65.

Walter

A. S.

Redlawsk

D. P.

(2019). Voters’ partisan responses to politicians’ immoral behavior. Political Psychology, 40(5), 1075–1097. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12582

66.

Wegman

(2014, September 29). Some judicial opinions require only 140 characters. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/30/opinion/justice-don-willett-of-the-texas-supreme-court-lights-up-twitter.html

67.

Whittington

K. E.

(2018). Partisanship, norms, and federal judicial appointments. Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy, 16(2), 521–535.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.52 MB

0.00 MB