The United States Supreme Court is supposed to be a stoic and non-partisan check on the chaos of our federal government, but recent years have seen this once-untouchable body become more and more untrustworthy.
The shift to the right was clear long before the overturn of Roe v. Wade, but the appearance of corruption has only become more blatant in the years since that historic decision came down. We’ve since seen presidents elevated to the rank of monarchs, firearms made even more accessible to a public living in fear of gun violence, and voting rights slowly stripped away in areas that threaten Conservative candidates.
The once-vital impartiality of our nation’s highest court seems to have gone out the window, in recent years, and its largely due to the Justices currently residing over our most important legal decisions. Each of them was elected by a president, but it seems our Commanders in Chief have ditched candidates with actual qualifications and unbiased backgrounds in favor of those that will further their political agendas.
How many justices are there on the Supreme Court?
The Supreme Court of the United States is made up of nine justices in total — one Chief Justice, and eight Associate Justices. Leading the current Court is Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who is currently serving as the 17th Chief Justice of the United States. He’s joined by Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Jackson is the most recent appointee to the Court.
How many of the Supreme Court Justices lean Conservative?
The current Supreme Court is made up of appointees from several different presidents, but with three separate Trump appointees, things are starting to skew Conservative. In fact, the current Supreme Court makeup is considered a Conservative supermajority, thanks to the far-right leaning of a number of its members.
Now this is all based around observations informed by the decisions they’ve made during their tenure on the Court, since each and every Supreme Court justice, if questioned, would tell you they are entirely non-partisan. That’s simply not true, however, as the gradual shift to the right over the last half-decade proves.
The current Court is broadly considered to vastly favor Conservative ideologies, with a full six Justices leaning hard to the right, and only three leaning to the left. The most liberal member of the Court, based on previous ruling history, is Sonia Sotomayor, followed by her other two left-leaning Justices, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
All of the remaining Justices skew hard to the right. Leading the pack as the most Conservative member — at least this term — is Samuel Alito, closely followed by Clarence Thomas. They’re joined by John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Neil Gorsuch. Of the lineup, only John Roberts keeps things even close to central, while the majority of his peers adhere so closely to Conservative ideologies they’re starting to look less like Justices, and more like politicians or lobbyists.