Race, electoral pressure, expected judicial ideology, and the vote to confirm Justice Clarence Thomas

Abstract

ABSTRACT The paper “Courting Constituents? An Analysis of the Senate Confirmation Vote on Justice Clarence Thomas” tests the theory that electoral pressure from Black constituents played a role in the confirmation of Justice Clarence Thomas to the United States Supreme Court (Overby, L. Marvin, Beth M. Henschen, Michael H. Walsh, and Julie Strauss. 1992. “Courting Constituents? An Analysis of the Senate Confirmation Vote on Justice Clarence Thomas.” American Political Science Review 86 (4): 997–1003. https://do.org/10.2307/1964351). This paper reveals several methodological errors in the original paper and also provides a friendly critique of several of the underlying assumptions put forth in the 1992 paper. This paper then offers an alternative explanation that the expected judicial ideology of Clarence Thomas nomination was relatively more important than electoral pressure from Black voters.