The 7 Most Liberal Supreme Court Justices in American History

ThoughtCo ^ | 6/30/19 | Jill Silos-Rooney, Ph.D.

[DallasBiff]

Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has long been a thorn in the side of American conservatives. She's been pilloried in the right-wing press by a range of so-called political experts, including college drop-out and shock jock Lars Larson, who publicly declared that Justice Ginsburg is "anti-American."

Her stinging dissent in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, which recently granted corporations certain exceptions to the Affordable Care Act with regard to birth control coverage, has once again loosed the gates of extreme conservative rhetoric. One columnist in The Washington Times even crowned her "liberal bully of the week" even though hers was the dissenting, not majority, opinion.

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TOPICS: Chit/Chat; History
KEYWORDS: scotus

[DallasBiff]

Here is the list.

Louis Brandeis (Term: 1916-1939)

William J. Brennan (1956-1990)

William O. Douglas (1939-1975)

John Marshall Harlan (1877-1911)

Thurgood Marshall (1967-1991)

Earl Warren (1953-1969)

Well Eisenhower made some doosie decisions with Warren and Brennan, GHW Bush had Souter, although his biggest achievement was Clarence Thomas.

Discuss.

[zeestephen]

As I recall...

George W. Bush nominated Center-Left John Roberts to be Chief Justice.

[Yo-Yo]

I nominate Ketanji Brown Jackson (2022- )

[PghBaldy]

#6 alphabetically is: Frank Murphy (1940-1949)
Murphy fought against discrimination in many forms. He was the first justice to include the word "racism" in an opinion,

[Verginius Rufus]

3 of the 7 were nominated by Republican Presidents.

[Nateman]

Upon hearing of Ginsburg’s demise I danced a little. Ding Dong the witch is dead!

[MeanWestTexan]

Authoritarian leftists are not “liberal”.

Giving power to unelected technocrats and judges and taking it away from the People and their representatives is the opposite of liberty.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Ridiculous choices, but - by deliberately NOT selecting today’s quadruplicates of tyrannical women socialist political democrats, the writer perhaps believes we will accept these as “rational moderates” fiercely opposing the far-right-wing Nazis in 2024.

[scrabblehack]

Harlan the Younger (Harlan the Elder’s grandson, no?) was conservative...that’s my recollection.

[libertylover]

I remember Souter as the one you could always count on to get it wrong.