Justices Are of an Opinion, but Not Often

The authors' point is that doctrinal change on the court doesn't necessarily require a change in membership.

The group used "systematically developed data and sophisticated statistical tools" to examine the 26 justices who have served on the court for 10 or more terms since 1937. They examined past votes to determine a justice's ideology and how it changed with the passage of time.

They concluded that 12 moved to the left (including current justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy, David H. Souter and John Paul Stevens), seven moved to the right (including Scalia), four remained consistent, and three moved "in more exotic ways."

Among the consistent were Stephen G. Breyer, who the authors say has stayed true to his moderately liberal leanings, and Clarence Thomas, who remains the court's most conservative member.

The paper -- "Ideological Drift Among Supreme Court Justices: Who, When, and How Important?" -- doesn't address an additional question: Why?

Outside Judicial Purview

Consistent, perhaps, but also clueless about aging rock stars.

Breyer struck out over the weekend on National Public Radio's "Wait Wait . . . Don't Tell Me" game show. In a segment asking questions outside the guest's expertise, Breyer didn't know that David Bowie once tried to have his swimming pool exorcised, that Iggy Pop is said to have lived for a year eating only sausages or that Ozzy Osbourne's first question after checking in to rehab was how to get to the bar.

Duh!

Breyer was the first sitting justice to appear on the show. Those of us at The Washington Post still recall fondly that the late chief justice William H. Rehnquist used to play Dr. Gridlock's contest of matching vanity license plates to the makes and models of cars they adorned.