The Effects of Race and Gender on the Judicial Ambitions of State Trial Court Judges

The intersection of gender-and to a lesser extent, race-and political ambition has been the subject of considerable research. To date, however, analyses of the intersection of political ambition, race, and gender in the context of the judiciary have been limited. The authors seek to remedy this deficiency with the use of data from a recent survey of justices of the New York State Supreme Court, the major trial court in the State of New York. They find that female and nonwhite justices have a greater desire to move up in a judicial career than do their white male counterparts.