In many ways, Merrick Garland was a safe choice for President Obama to nominate to the Supreme Court. This is in part because Garland’s credentials — degrees from Harvard University, work as a federal prosecutor and service as chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia — are impeccable. But it is also because he has a reputation as being ideologically moderate.

Is Garland’s reputation as a moderate judge accurate? Some have argued that Garland has deferred to administrative agencies when it benefits unions but not when it benefits corporations, suggesting that Garland may be quite liberal.

Our research that measures the ideology of judges based on the ideology of the clerks they hire, though, suggests that Garland is not very liberal, but actually more moderate — technically, center-left.

Read more at The Washington Post