State Supreme Courts ideological breakdown

[JerryArkansas]

2 of the Republican appointees should clearly count as moderates in Michigan.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2018/11/07/michigan-supreme-court-election-results/1896783002/

https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/michigans-republican-black-sheep-justice-winning-some-unlikely-allies

"Meanwhile, a Supreme Court term was underway, during which she joined in decisions with fellow Republican-nominated Justice David Viviano and two Democratic-nominated justices, Bridget McCormack and Richard Bernstein, on most of the court’s major opinions that term."

There were major 4/3 rulings upholding a gun control law and the redistricting commission ballot referendum where Clement and Viviano joined the 2 Dem appointees (2 at that time, a 3rd Dem unseated one of the other 2 more hardline Republican justices last November).  The GOP explicitly disowned Justice Clement in her reelection campaign (which she won), so she is essentially an independent now.   

May be - all Republican judges are authomatically marked as "conservative"?

No, because I know one of the moderates indicated in Arkansas are a Republican.

[smoltchanov]

2 of the Republican appointees should clearly count as moderates in Michigan.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2018/11/07/michigan-supreme-court-election-results/1896783002/

https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/michigans-republican-black-sheep-justice-winning-some-unlikely-allies

"Meanwhile, a Supreme Court term was underway, during which she joined in decisions with fellow Republican-nominated Justice David Viviano and two Democratic-nominated justices, Bridget McCormack and Richard Bernstein, on most of the court’s major opinions that term."

There were major 4/3 rulings upholding a gun control law and the redistricting commission ballot referendum where Clement and Viviano joined the 2 Dem appointees (2 at that time, a 3rd Dem unseated one of the other 2 more hardline Republican justices last November).  The GOP explicitly disowned Justice Clement in her reelection campaign (which she won), so she is essentially an independent now.   

May be - all Republican judges are authomatically marked as "conservative"?

No, because I know one of the moderates indicated in Arkansas are a Republican.

Thanks! But then - i don't understand Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Sure, Republicans held a governorships for many years there, but they (Republican governors) were not especially conservative. Why then Supreme Courts of these states are so conservative?

[JerryArkansas]

2 of the Republican appointees should clearly count as moderates in Michigan.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2018/11/07/michigan-supreme-court-election-results/1896783002/

https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/michigans-republican-black-sheep-justice-winning-some-unlikely-allies

"Meanwhile, a Supreme Court term was underway, during which she joined in decisions with fellow Republican-nominated Justice David Viviano and two Democratic-nominated justices, Bridget McCormack and Richard Bernstein, on most of the court’s major opinions that term."

There were major 4/3 rulings upholding a gun control law and the redistricting commission ballot referendum where Clement and Viviano joined the 2 Dem appointees (2 at that time, a 3rd Dem unseated one of the other 2 more hardline Republican justices last November).  The GOP explicitly disowned Justice Clement in her reelection campaign (which she won), so she is essentially an independent now.   

May be - all Republican judges are authomatically marked as "conservative"?

No, because I know one of the moderates indicated in Arkansas are a Republican.

Thanks! But then - i don't understand Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Sure, Republicans held a governorships for many years there, but they (Republican governors) were not especially conservative. Why then Supreme Courts of these states are so conservative?

Most of the justices in Mass have been appointed by Baker

[smoltchanov]

2 of the Republican appointees should clearly count as moderates in Michigan.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2018/11/07/michigan-supreme-court-election-results/1896783002/

https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/michigans-republican-black-sheep-justice-winning-some-unlikely-allies

"Meanwhile, a Supreme Court term was underway, during which she joined in decisions with fellow Republican-nominated Justice David Viviano and two Democratic-nominated justices, Bridget McCormack and Richard Bernstein, on most of the court’s major opinions that term."

There were major 4/3 rulings upholding a gun control law and the redistricting commission ballot referendum where Clement and Viviano joined the 2 Dem appointees (2 at that time, a 3rd Dem unseated one of the other 2 more hardline Republican justices last November).  The GOP explicitly disowned Justice Clement in her reelection campaign (which she won), so she is essentially an independent now.   

May be - all Republican judges are authomatically marked as "conservative"?

No, because I know one of the moderates indicated in Arkansas are a Republican.

Thanks! But then - i don't understand Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Sure, Republicans held a governorships for many years there, but they (Republican governors) were not especially conservative. Why then Supreme Courts of these states are so conservative?

Most of the justices in Mass have been appointed by Baker

Who is, surely, NOT a conservative...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

AR, KY, KS, and OK should utilize the power of their state supreme courts to reverse gerrymandering, no?

AR is a Dem map. They could've gerrymandered a single D district but were too confident they could hold up against trends.

KY has some pretty strong anti-gerrymandering rules in its constitution and the Democrats held the Governorship and State House when the map was drawn anyway. Tough to see how things get better than the current map, you could shift some counties in KY-06 around but that would probably violate the state constitution. That also protects Louisville from being split, so Kentucky will be locked into a 5-1 map for quite some time.

Kansas was actually court drawn because the GOP in the legislature couldn't stop infighting. KS-03 could have Lawrence returned to it to boost it but that'd be more of a Dem gerrymander than removal of a current one. Plus KS-02 was close with it last time but can't really be made stronger. Not much else that can be done there.

Oklahoma in theory could have Kendra Horn put in a better position by removing the rural counties and replacing it with the part of Oklahoma County cut out, but even then she'd be quite the underdog. And no way to make the map more D-friendly. The Oklahoma County split is the only real gerrymander in it anyway.

[Zaybay]

2 of the Republican appointees should clearly count as moderates in Michigan.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2018/11/07/michigan-supreme-court-election-results/1896783002/

https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/michigans-republican-black-sheep-justice-winning-some-unlikely-allies

"Meanwhile, a Supreme Court term was underway, during which she joined in decisions with fellow Republican-nominated Justice David Viviano and two Democratic-nominated justices, Bridget McCormack and Richard Bernstein, on most of the court’s major opinions that term."

There were major 4/3 rulings upholding a gun control law and the redistricting commission ballot referendum where Clement and Viviano joined the 2 Dem appointees (2 at that time, a 3rd Dem unseated one of the other 2 more hardline Republican justices last November).  The GOP explicitly disowned Justice Clement in her reelection campaign (which she won), so she is essentially an independent now.   

May be - all Republican judges are authomatically marked as "conservative"?

No, because I know one of the moderates indicated in Arkansas are a Republican.

Thanks! But then - i don't understand Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Sure, Republicans held a governorships for many years there, but they (Republican governors) were not especially conservative. Why then Supreme Courts of these states are so conservative?

Most of the justices in Mass have been appointed by Baker

Who is, surely, NOT a conservative...

His judicial appointments are.

[smoltchanov]

2 of the Republican appointees should clearly count as moderates in Michigan.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2018/11/07/michigan-supreme-court-election-results/1896783002/

https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/michigans-republican-black-sheep-justice-winning-some-unlikely-allies

"Meanwhile, a Supreme Court term was underway, during which she joined in decisions with fellow Republican-nominated Justice David Viviano and two Democratic-nominated justices, Bridget McCormack and Richard Bernstein, on most of the court’s major opinions that term."

There were major 4/3 rulings upholding a gun control law and the redistricting commission ballot referendum where Clement and Viviano joined the 2 Dem appointees (2 at that time, a 3rd Dem unseated one of the other 2 more hardline Republican justices last November).  The GOP explicitly disowned Justice Clement in her reelection campaign (which she won), so she is essentially an independent now.   

May be - all Republican judges are authomatically marked as "conservative"?

No, because I know one of the moderates indicated in Arkansas are a Republican.

Thanks! But then - i don't understand Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Sure, Republicans held a governorships for many years there, but they (Republican governors) were not especially conservative. Why then Supreme Courts of these states are so conservative?

Most of the justices in Mass have been appointed by Baker

Who is, surely, NOT a conservative...

His judicial appointments are.

Interesting case then... It seemed to me, that usually governors appoint judges with ideological views similar to their own...

[Zaybay]

2 of the Republican appointees should clearly count as moderates in Michigan.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2018/11/07/michigan-supreme-court-election-results/1896783002/

https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/michigans-republican-black-sheep-justice-winning-some-unlikely-allies

"Meanwhile, a Supreme Court term was underway, during which she joined in decisions with fellow Republican-nominated Justice David Viviano and two Democratic-nominated justices, Bridget McCormack and Richard Bernstein, on most of the court’s major opinions that term."

There were major 4/3 rulings upholding a gun control law and the redistricting commission ballot referendum where Clement and Viviano joined the 2 Dem appointees (2 at that time, a 3rd Dem unseated one of the other 2 more hardline Republican justices last November).  The GOP explicitly disowned Justice Clement in her reelection campaign (which she won), so she is essentially an independent now.   

May be - all Republican judges are authomatically marked as "conservative"?

No, because I know one of the moderates indicated in Arkansas are a Republican.

Thanks! But then - i don't understand Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Sure, Republicans held a governorships for many years there, but they (Republican governors) were not especially conservative. Why then Supreme Courts of these states are so conservative?

Most of the justices in Mass have been appointed by Baker

Who is, surely, NOT a conservative...

His judicial appointments are.

Interesting case then... It seemed to me, that usually governors appoint judges with ideological views similar to their own...

They don’t? Look at every other state, that pattern doesn’t hold up.