My chosen research question (and explanation because I believe I am confusing…maybe research question needs re-worded or tweaked a little):

Question:
How tilted is the ideology of our Federal Justice system or is it overall balanced?

Explanation:

I believe the President bases his nominations of any federal judge a lot on the nominees political ideology. A President will never appoint all federal judges (around 800 or so), but during a term it’s not uncommon for a single President to nominate and appoint many judges. So, how is our current and historical judicial system composed? Most liberal, mostly conservative, or fairly balanced overall?

Hypothesis:

Our federal judicial system is made up of an overall balanced ideological standpoint. Since one president will never be tasked with appointing ALL judicial seats, since they hold lifetime appointments, then the re-elections, newly elected, and differing ideologies of all who hold office, including the Senate who has to confirm nominations, will balance out the appointments to federal judge seats over time and overall.

NOTE:

Research questions, hypothesis, theories…can all be tweaked with as I’m no expert in this field but hopefully my idea is clear. Thanks.

Instructions from instructor:

Students will submit anannotated bibliography consisting of at least 15 sources. At least 10 of them must be scholarly secondary sources, most likely political science/social science journal articles or law review articles. Your research question should appear at the top of the page. The bibliography must follow the Turabian author/date reference list format. Annotations for each source will describe in a short paragraph for each source the source’s relevance to the topic of the case. Evaluation criteria: Up to 7 points for each source, assessed based on relevance and formatting. Bibliographies that deviate substantially from the Turabian format will be returned ungraded and may be resubmitted one time with a 10 point penalty.