Supreme Court of the United States: Difference between revisions

Devins and Baum argue that before 2010, the Court never had clear ideological blocs that fell perfectly along party lines. In choosing their appointments, Presidents often focused more on friendship and political connections than on ideology. Republican presidents sometimes appointed liberals and Democratic presidents sometimes appointed conservatives. As a result, "... between 1790 and early 2010 there were only two decisions that the ''Guide to the U.S. Supreme Court'' designated as important and that had at least two dissenting votes in which the Justices divided along party lines, about one-half of one percent."<ref name="DevinsBaum">{{cite journal |last1=Devins |first1=Neal |last2=Baum |first2=Lawrence |date=2017 |title=Split definitive: How party polarization turned the Supreme Court into a partisan court |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/691096 |journal=The Supreme Court Review |publisher=University of Chicago Law School |volume=2016 |issue=1 |pages=301–365 |doi=10.1086/691096 |s2cid=142355294 |access-date=November 13, 2022}}</ref>{{rp|316}}<ref name="DevinsBaumBook">{{cite book |last1=Baum |first1=Lawrence |url=https://wwws.law.northwestern.edu/research-faculty/events/colloquium/public-law/documents/devins_baum_the%20company%20they%20keep.pdf |title=The company they keep: How partisan divisions came to the Supreme Court |last2=Devins |first2=Neal |date=2019 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0190278052}}</ref> Even in the turbulent 1960s and 1970s, Democratic and Republican elites tended to agree on some major issues, especially concerning civil rights and civil liberties—and so did the justices. But since 1991, they argue, ideology has been much more important in choosing justices—all Republican appointees have been committed conservatives and all Democratic appointees have been liberals.<ref name="DevinsBaum" />{{rp|331–344}} As the more moderate Republican justices retired, the court has become more partisan. The Court became more divided sharply along partisan lines with justices appointed by Republican presidents taking increasingly conservative positions and those appointed by Democrats taking moderate liberal positions.<ref name="DevinsBaum" />{{rp|357}}

Following the confirmation of [[Amy Coney Barrett]] in 2020 after the death of [[Ruth Bader Ginsburg]], the court is composed of six justices appointed by Republican presidents and three appointed by Democratic presidents. It is popularly accepted that Chief Justice [[John Roberts|Roberts]] and associate justices [[Clarence Thomas|Thomas]], [[Samuel Alito|Alito]], [[Neil Gorsuch|Gorsuch]], [[Brett Kavanaugh|Kavanaugh]], and Barrett, appointed by Republican presidents, compose the court's conservative wing, and that Justices [[Sonia Sotomayor|Sotomayor]], [[Elena Kagan|Kagan]], and [[Ketanji Brown Jackson|Jackson]], appointed by Democratic presidents, compose the court's liberal wing.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Liptak |first=Adam |author-link=Adam Liptak |date=February 25, 2022 |title=Judge Jackson's Rulings: Detailed, Methodical and Leaning Left |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/us/supreme-court-ketanji-brown-jackson-rulings.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230503193032/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/us/supreme-court-ketanji-brown-jackson-rulings.html |archive-date=May 3, 2023 |access-date=May 3, 2023 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>  

Prior to Justice Ginsburg's death in 2020, the conservative Chief Justice Roberts was sometimes described as the court's 'median justice' (with four justices more liberal and four more conservative than he is).<ref>{{cite news |last=Betz |first=Bradford |date=March 2, 2019 |title=Chief Justice Roberts' recent votes raise doubts about 'conservative revolution' on Supreme Court |url=https://www.foxnews.com/us/chief-justice-roberts-recent-voting-record-downplays-notion-of-conservative-revolution-in-supreme-court |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201118001952/https://www.foxnews.com/us/chief-justice-roberts-recent-voting-record-downplays-notion-of-conservative-revolution-in-supreme-court |archive-date=November 18, 2020 |access-date=April 20, 2019 |work=[[Fox News]] |quote=Erwin Chemerinsky, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, told Bloomberg that Roberts' recent voting record may indicate that he is taking his role as the median justice "very seriously" and that the recent period was "perhaps the beginning of his being the swing justice."}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Roeder |first=Oliver |date=October 6, 2018 |title=How Kavanaugh will change the Supreme Court |url=https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-kavanaugh-will-change-the-supreme-court/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201207162032/https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-kavanaugh-will-change-the-supreme-court/ |archive-date=December 7, 2020 |access-date=April 20, 2019 |work=[[FiveThirtyEight]] |quote=Based on what we know about measuring the ideology of justices and judges, the Supreme Court will soon take a hard and quick turn to the right. It's a new path that is likely to last for years. Chief Justice John Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee, will almost certainly become the new median justice, defining the court's new ideological center.}}</ref> Darragh Roche argues that Kavanaugh as 2021's median justice exemplifies the rightward shift in the court.<ref name="median">{{cite news |last=Roche |first=Darragh |date=October 5, 2021 |title=Brett Kavanaugh Is Supreme Court's Ideological Median as New Term Begins |url=https://www.newsweek.com/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-ideological-median-new-term-conservatives-1635584 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211030175713/https://www.newsweek.com/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-ideological-median-new-term-conservatives-1635584 |archive-date=October 30, 2021 |access-date=October 30, 2021 |work=Newsweek}}</ref>{{Update inline|date=February 2024}}