A Segal–Cover score is an "attempt to measure the perceived qualifications and ideology

Ideology

An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...

" of United States Supreme Court justices. The method of was introduced by Jeffrey Segal and Albert Cover (both of Stony Brook University) in their article "Ideological Values and the Votes of U.S. Supreme Court Justices," published in the American Political Science Review

American Political Science Review

The American Political Science Review is the flagship publication of the American Political Science Association and is the most prestigious journal in political science according to the ISI 2004 Journal Citation Report...

in 1989. The scores as of publication in 1989 have been updated by Segal to cover all nominees up to the 2010 nomination of Elena Kagan

Elena Kagan Supreme Court nomination

On May 10, 2010, President Barack Obama announced his selection of Elena Kagan for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens...

.

The scores are based on analysis of pre-confirmation newspaper editorial

Editorial

An opinion piece is an article, published in a newspaper or magazine, that mainly reflects the author's opinion about the subject. Opinion pieces are featured in many periodicals.-Editorials:...

s regarding the nomination of each justice dating back to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Supreme Court candidates

Franklin D. Roosevelt Supreme Court candidates

During his twelve years in office, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed eight new members of the Supreme Court of the United States: Associate Justices Hugo Black, Stanley F. Reed, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Frank Murphy, James F. Byrnes, Robert H. Jackson, and Wiley Blount...

. The editorials analyzed are from The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....

, Chicago Tribune

Chicago Tribune

The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...

and Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

. The Wall Street Journal was added starting with David Souter

David Souter

David Hackett Souter is a former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He served from 1990 until his retirement on June 29, 2009. Appointed by President George H. W. Bush to fill the seat vacated by William J...

's nomination "to compensate for the Los Angeles Times drift leftward." Each nominee received two scores that ranged from 0 to 1:

• for qualification, a score of 0 means unqualified and 1 means extremely qualified
• for ideology, a score of 0 means most conservative, and 1 means most liberal. Segal and Cover found that the scores were strongly correlated with the subsequent votes of the justices.

Examples

The Segal–Cover scores for the current members of the Court are as follows:

Name	Ideology	Qualification
Sonia Sotomayor Sonia Sotomayor Sonia Maria Sotomayor is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving since August 2009. Sotomayor is the Court's 111th justice, its first Hispanic justice, and its third female justice....	0.780	0.810
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Ginsburg was appointed by President Bill Clinton and took the oath of office on August 10, 1993. She is the second female justice and the first Jewish female justice.She is generally viewed as belonging to...	0.680	1.000
Stephen Breyer Stephen Breyer Stephen Gerald Breyer is an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994, and known for his pragmatic approach to constitutional law, Breyer is generally associated with the more liberal side of the Court....	0.475	0.545
Elena Kagan Elena Kagan Elena Kagan is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving since August 7, 2010. Kagan is the Court's 112th justice and fourth female justice....	0.730	0.730
Anthony Kennedy Anthony Kennedy Anthony McLeod Kennedy is an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, having been appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1988. Since the retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor, Kennedy has often been the swing vote on many of the Court's politically charged 5–4 decisions...	0.365	0.890
Clarence Thomas Clarence Thomas Clarence Thomas is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Succeeding Thurgood Marshall, Thomas is the second African American to serve on the Court....	0.160	0.415
John Roberts	0.120	0.970
Samuel Alito Samuel Alito Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr. is an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He was nominated by President George W. Bush and has served on the court since January 31, 2006....	0.100	0.810
Antonin Scalia Antonin Scalia Antonin Gregory Scalia is an American jurist who serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. As the longest-serving justice on the Court, Scalia is the Senior Associate Justice...	0.000	1.000

In June 2009, Segal revealed a preliminary calculation of the Segal–Cover score for Sonia Sotomayor

Sonia Sotomayor

Sonia Maria Sotomayor is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving since August 2009. Sotomayor is the Court's 111th justice, its first Hispanic justice, and its third female justice....

, less than three weeks after her nomination

Sonia Sotomayor Supreme Court nomination

On May 26, 2009, President Barack Obama announced his selection of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, to replace retiring Justice David Souter. Sotomayor's nomination was formally submitted to the United States Senate on June 1, 2009, when the...

and before her Senate hearing; at that point he thought Sotomayor will be one of the most qualified justices (though not the most qualified) and likely as liberal as Ruth Bader Ginsburg.