“The Supreme Court Drifts to the Left.”
That’s the message of a chart that takes up a good chunk of some of the most valuable journalistic real estate in the world, the top half of the front page of the New York Times (6/28/16). Looking at the chart, you can see that just about every justice has moved to the left over time: Of the Democratic appointees, Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Bryer are all well to the left of where they were when they were appointed; only Elena Kagan is more or less where she started out.
The justices named by Republican presidents have all made a leftward swing, with Antonin Scalia exhibiting the most dramatic changes of heart. (The chart ends in 2015, before Scalia’s death earlier this year.)
What a great time for Supreme Court politics! Or a terrible time, depending on your point of view.
Only—that’s not what this chart shows at all.
The chart is based on the justices’ Martin/Quinn scores, which we’ve talked about before (FAIR.org, 3/18/16):
Keep in mind, as well, that Martin/Quinn scores are based solely on differences between judges’ voting records; the actual content of the votes is not considered. In other words, eight Reagan Republican judges voting together with one Stormfront judge voting to their right would appear exactly the same as eight Revolutionary Communist Party judges voting together with one Socialist Workers Party judge voting to their right—that is, as eight middle-of-the-road judges with one far-right outlier. This makes the use of Martin/Quinn for comparisons over time extremely sketchy.
So not only do Martin/Quinn scores not show that the Supreme Court “drifts to the left,” it would be impossible for those scores to show the Court as a whole drifting anywhere, because they’re based on relative voting records. If everyone on the court suddenly decided to vote the same way, whether “left-wing” or “right-wing,” Martin/Quinn would show them all converging on the center, because there would be no divergent voting pattern to compare them against.
From Wikipedia’s “Ideological Leanings of Supreme Court Justices“
The Martin/Quinn analysis can sometimes show when a particular justice stops voting so much with one wing of the court and starts voting with another wing. But the shifts in the chart can just as easily be caused by the change in the mix of justices on the court. For example, Clarence Thomas “moved to the left” starting in 2005—because that’s when Samuel Alito joined the court, making Thomas less of an outlier.
Likewise, Sotomayor and Ginsburg had a big leftward shift in 2010—because that’s when John Paul Stevens, the most progressive member of the Court, retired.
To compare the ideological positions of justices not relatively but in some absolute sense is hard, and maybe impossible, because different sets of justices don’t vote on the exact same cases. But considering that the Court recently ruled 5–3 that evidence found in an illegal stop is admissible so long as the suspect has an outstanding warrant, it’s safe to say that the golden age of progressive Supreme Court jurisprudence is not yet upon us.
Jim Naureckas is the editor of FAIR.org. Follow him on Twitter at @JNaureckas.
You can send a message to the New York Times at letters@nytimes.com (Twitter:@NYTimes). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.
The NYT needs this “proof” to keep alive the narrative that electing HRC is of the utmost importance because we need to move the Supreme Court in a liberal direction. The politicization of the Supreme Court is one of the great weaknesses of our country. We look to it as the final arbiter of justice, but when it’s makeup is left in the hands of the “haves” – the political establishment -, it is those who need its protection most who suffer.
thank you for correcting – the elite media is so unfair. I would like to see more coverage of how racist they are – we are Americans and would prefer to leave race, religion, sexual orientation out of it. It just doesn’t matter. The guy in Orlando was mentally ill and used isis as an excuse. His father should never have been allowed in the country in the first place because he is a nut case. We need to fund law enforcement and enforce our existing laws. It is already illegal for someone breaking our laws to gain from it so their children are NOT citizens. I love immigrants – awesome people – just get in line like everyone else and quit thinking you deserve to be treated special.
The distract-and-divide political theater has become so obvious lately, to the point of absurdity. No wonder this country can’t rise above the partisan and ideological nonsense.
It is obvious that the late Antonin Scalia was both relatively and absolutely the worst Supreme Court justice in American history and also obvious that he gets a free pass at the New York Times.
Scalia the worst ever? Mmm, close, but what about Thomas? Or Rehnquist, for that matter.