To your point, the three most extreme justices on the current court had the following confirmation votes: 96-3 68-31 52-48 Guess which one of those is not like the others? (They are, respectively, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Thomas for those unfamiliar with past vote margins.)
Define extreme. Thanks Seems that is where they might have ended up at this point not where they were when confirmed.
Worth noting that Monica McLean was willing to come forward, speak to the FBI, and dispute the ex-boyfriend's claim about the polygraph:
Looking at the chart I posted on the last page and putting some numbers to it you get this outcome: Judge----Rating Thomas +3.1 Alito +2.1 Gorsuch +1.3 Roberts +0.5 Kennedy +0.5 Kagan -1.5 Breyer -1.5 Ginsburg -2.7 Sotomayor -3.2 That totals a -1.4, so the old court overall has a slight liberal bent to it. Replace Kennedy +0.5 with Kavanaugh and a hypothetical rating equal to Alito of +2.1, the court would go to a very slight conservative bent of +0.2. Pretty much balanced overall but Roberts will definitely be the swing vote.
Yup, but basically a sidenote now that the Senators have the FBI "investigation" in their hands (Scare quotes absolutely deserved).
If you use the chart I posted those three are the Most extreme meaning currently farthest away from the political center. If you look at the chart and look at when they were confirmed I would say the 3 most extreme would have been Thomas, Sotomayor, and Kagan.
That's not how the math works. Cases are decided by number of votes. The chart actually has the bent of the Court. It was conservative leaning before Kennedy retired (because Kennedy was the swing vote at +0.5).
(You posted your second comment while I was writing the below one) The one thing I think about is to define extreme. I asked ben, but what I was getting at is that at least according to this graph, it's defined within the context of how the justices vote, not on what an objectively true center. Don't get me wrong, it's a good chart that has some value, but I think it can be easily over-interpreted, especially if when we consider how the court (in theory) is supposed to be above the political fray, not basing decisions on political ideology but the constitution. But in a sense, that is clearly not the case, that political ideology plays a big role--except perhaps currently for John Roberts, who as chief justice, has by position taken on the role of being the chief caretaker of the court itself, including public perceptions about it.
Not really. Sotomayor was questioned about her approach to outcome based jurisprudence during her hearings and Ginsburg was a woman's rights activist before she sat on the bench. She has definitely drifted further left over time in response to being in the minority on the court, but she clearly has always had her convictions driving how she rules in some areas.
Furthest away from centrist. And everyone knew all three of those were likely to have a strong ideological bent when they were nominated. I think those are three of the justices most likely to vote based on political ideology too (I would say THE three most likely to do so, but I think you would probably need to sub Alito for Thomas to make that accurate - Thomas is the most conservative, but his is based on a more coherent judicial philosophy than is Alito’s).
It's not. Let's say you had the following Court: +3 +3 +3 +3 +3 -7 -7 -7 -7 If you averaged that out, it would tell us that the Court is Kagan-level liberal. However, the Court decisions would actually reflect Thomas-level conservative. Averaging things out doesn't give you any idea of what the ideological bent of the Court is. That's what I'm pointing out when I say that's not how the math works (because you represented the math as giving us the ideological bent of the Court).
The point I was trying to make, was that Roberts has been thrust into the swing vote position because of the court moving to the right. I was also using the chart when looking at your question to Ben on extreme. It is a reference, if you have another one I would look at it as well. One other obersvation is that over time justices generally tend to move to the left.
Having convictions doesn't make one extreme in any objective sense. My point was that it's extreme only based upon the others on the court, not necessarily on actually being extreme, objectively speaking. For instance to use Ginsberg. Society has long had biases against women, whether in voting, work, politics etc...Being a activist on behalf of women's rights might make one extreme compared to others on the court, but women having rights is no more extreme than men having rights, other than men defined society in an extreme way to start. From that perspective, expanding/improving/making equal women's rights would then be correcting and adjusting to some more objective center, basically flipping the script since the true extreme is what was had been the norm--i.e. it's okay to deny women certain rights.
I don't think that is true at all. Here is the LA Times story on Ginsburg from the time: Clinton Picks Moderate Judge Ruth Ginsburg for High Court : Judiciary: President calls the former women's rights activist a healer and consensus builder. Her nomination is expected to win easy Senate approval. Title: Clinton Picks Moderate Judge Ruth Ginsburg for High Court Key pull quotes: Doesn't seem like they thought she had a strong ideological bent when she was nominated. Washington Post article from her confirmation: GINSBURG SWORN IN AS 107TH JUSTICE AND 2ND WOMAN ON SUPREME COURT I don't think you could argue that she was viewed as some sort of fire-breathing liberal at the time of her confirmation.
