# Gorsuch confirmation hearing **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 20, 2017, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gorsuch-confirmation-hearing/782653 "2017-03-20T22:05:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 327
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gorsuch-confirmation-hearing/782653/327 "2017-03-24T15:46:28Z")
> [@Okrahoma](#): > > If Democrats filibuster, the filibuster goes away. Guaranteed. It would really only take 2 (or is it 3?) Republicans to desire to preserve the filibuster for it to remain. I would not make such a guarantee myself - but I think it’s a good bet. > [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > My apologies. It’s just that the [Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/02/15/neil-gorsuch-could-be-the-most-conservative-justice-on-the-supreme-court/?utm_term=.22c9ebfb02f3) cites different research that comes to a similar conclusion, based this time on the actual decisions handed down. I don’t think the research cited by WaPo comes to the same conclusion specifically. The conclusions you posted previously were: [ol] [li]Gorusch is more conservative than Scalia. [/li][li]He’s more conservative than 87% of all other federal judges[/li][/ol] I will gladly acknowledge that Gorsuch is what is typically described as conservative in his judicial philosophy. That part isn’t in question so the pronouncement that he is conservative is not really surprising or controversial. But is he more conservative than Scalia? Well I think that will depend on how it’s measured. In looking at the actual research [here is how they describe the methodology](https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=463070022024115107067081072066084109057049057076086029076124070089067076006025124093117033048052107045040092015030109026003100021041003015023095115101069106112027057034084067067065118069119093084022126090086069094100003020079001100103077016111029101&EXT=pdf): > [@](#): > > Taking a different approach to estimate Gorsuch’s ideology and where he will fit on the Court, we apply a standard one-dimensional item response theory model. This approach estimates the ideal point of Gorsuch in the same policy space as his would-be colleagues on the Supreme Court. To do so, we started by gathering all dissenting opinions filed on the Tenth Circuit from January 1, 2006 through February 4, 2017. We used Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe to obtain a total of 345 opinions. We then simply coded these opinions for whether a judge voted with the majority or with the dissent. Votes that were “mixed” (e.g., dissent in part) were coded as dissents, as were dissents from the denial of en banc rehearing. This yielded a total of 1246 judge votes, 86 of which involved Gorsuch. > > … > > In a perfect world, we would have instances where the justices of the Supreme Court sat alongside judges from the Tenth Circuit and decided the same case. Alas, such data do not exist. Nevertheless, we do observe cases where the Supreme Court reviewed decisions by the Tenth Circuit. The High Court reviewed 26 such cases between 2007 and 2016. We use these observations as though they were the justices voting on the same panel as the Tenth Circuit. The research cited does show that Gorsuch as measured would be more conservative than Scalia, however I’m not sure how meaningful that is. It certainly isn’t disqualifying, IMO, as you indicated previously. A few things stand out to me about the methodology though: Why just the dissents? Is it fair to base their assessment on 26 overlapping cases? Is it reasonable to do this type of analysis when the two courts are faced with different circumstance, different negotiations, and serving a different purpose? This methodology would be more robust if it was conducted for other jurists where the results are more known - say for the current members of SCOTUS when they served in an appellate role. So two things. First, I grant that Gorsuch is conservative - whether the magnitude of his conservatism is greater than Scalia I’m not convinced, but I am convinced it doesn’t matter. Second, the 87% figure is without merit. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gorsuch-confirmation-hearing/782653)._