State Supreme Courts ideological breakdown

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Blue = liberal
Red = conservative
Purple = moderate
Grey = vacant

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I actually read that the GOP can flip the IL state SCOTUS coz its based on district and we all know how bad the IL D's are self packed in clean districts

The Cook County district elects three. So the Democrats only need the northern Illinois district with DuPage, Lake and Kane included for a majority and we all know how those areas vote now. Pritzker won it in addition to Hillary winning it big.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I disagree with the categorization of the Minnesota Chief Justice (Lorie Skjerven Gildea) as a moderate by the way. She was appointed twice by Pawlenty (once as Associate Justice and then as Chief) and outside of no brainer rulings that are unanimous she rules the right wing position about 90% of the time.

Her "moderate" reputation is probably based on that her only opponents have been fundamentalist nutjobs, leaving her as the relatively liberal candidate in the race. I voted for her in 2008 and 2012 for that reason, in 2018 when she was unopposed I wrote in Brian Krassenstein.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Blue = liberal
Red = conservative
Purple = moderate
Grey = vacant

Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma are surprises (North Carolina would be surprising to most people as well, but as a resident I'm familiar with the liberal leanings of our supreme court). Is there any specific reason these three traditionally conservative state have supreme courts with liberal majorities?

Missouri's been under a Democratic Governor for 12 years since 2001 and there's four D Governor appointments. Kansas apparently still has a Sebelius-appointed majority. Similar situation in Oklahoma, Brad Henry (Democratic Governor from 2003-2011) appointed four of them, and a fifth is an ancient one appointed by Democratic Governor George Nigh all the way back in 1984.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Shouldn't Wisconsin be 5-2?

The guy who made it said he started before the most recent justice took office. It would be now.

[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.