Despite being in control of the Senate for the last 5 of 8 years, the House for the last 6 of 8 years, the Supreme Court for the last 8 of 8 years (plus some), and the Executive for the last 8 of 8 years, the GOP is somehow trying to claim that putting them back in power will really shake things up… right. As usual, the Star Tribune’s Steve Sack does an excellent job of capturing the moment:
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Supreme Court for 8 of 8 years? I don’t think so. It’s an even 4-4-1 split now.
Sean who picked the judges… not whether they please you now. Strange how Republican appointed Supremes sometimes actually get a conscious once appointed.
Republicans are not party affiliated. But they have ideologies, on which there is a 4-4-1 split. I don’t even know what you are trying to argue.
Sean2: Wha, wha, wha, whaaattt? There is no one in the mainstream of legal analysis that could credibly claim that this Supreme Court is split down the center of the ideological spectrum. First of all, 7 of the 9 justices are Republican appointees. Now, I’ll give you that Stevens has matured into a more liberal justice and was a fortunate mistake by H.W. Bush, but the court is not centrist.
Is there a split sometimes? Of course! There are 9 justices, so the center of gravity shifts everytime a new one is appointed. The last time it shifted is when Alito replaced O’Connor and it shifted to the right. Kennedy is a conservative but so was O’Connor. The court has been conservative since Kennedy was appointed by Reagan in ‘88 (and I would argue ever since Reagan appointed Scalia in ‘84).
It is so clear where the ideological balance of the court has shifted over the past three decades when analyzing the opinions of the court, that I was absolutely flabbergasted to see you suggest the court isn’t conservative controlled. Sometimes the fact that the middle judge becomes the swing vote gets mistaken for the middle judge being an independent or a moderate (thus the “1” in your “4-1-4”), but this simply isn’t true. The middle just indicates the median, not the balance.