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The 7 Most Liberal Supreme Court Justices in American History
ThoughtCo ^ | 6/30/19 | Jill Silos-Rooney, Ph.D.

Posted on 07/02/2024 1:45:11 PM PDT by 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.

(Excerpt) Read more at thoughtco.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; History
KEYWORDS: libiots; scotus; wboopi
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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.

1 posted on 07/02/2024 1:45:11 PM PDT by DallasBiff
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To: DallasBiff

As I recall...

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


2 posted on 07/02/2024 2:00:53 PM PDT by zeestephen (Trump "Lost" By 43,000 Votes - Spread Across Three States - GA, WI, AZ)
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To: DallasBiff

I nominate Ketanji Brown Jackson (2022- )


3 posted on 07/02/2024 2:01:30 PM PDT by Yo-Yo (Is the /Sarc tag really necessary? Pray for President Biden: Psalm 109:8)
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To: DallasBiff
#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,
4 posted on 07/02/2024 2:03:05 PM PDT by PghBaldy (12/14/12 - 930am -rampage begins... 12/15/12 - 1030am - Obama team scouts photo-op locations.)
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To: DallasBiff

3 of the 7 were nominated by Republican Presidents.


5 posted on 07/02/2024 2:08:25 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: DallasBiff

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


6 posted on 07/02/2024 2:14:29 PM PDT by Nateman (Democrats did not strive for fraud friendly voting merely to continue honest elections.)
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To: DallasBiff

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.


7 posted on 07/02/2024 3:00:56 PM PDT by MeanWestTexan (Sometimes There Is No Lesser Of Two Evils)
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To: DallasBiff; Liz; LS; SunkenCiv; Red Badger

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.


8 posted on 07/02/2024 3:02:17 PM PDT by Robert A Cook PE (Method, motive, and opportunity: No morals, shear madness and hatred by those who cheat.)
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To: DallasBiff

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


9 posted on 07/02/2024 3:26:50 PM PDT by scrabblehack
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To: DallasBiff

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


10 posted on 07/02/2024 4:12:25 PM PDT by libertylover (Our biggest problem, by far, is that almost all of big media is AGENDA-DRIVEN, not-truth driven.)
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To: DallasBiff

These justices were famous for advocating for the rights of the individual. Yet, none of them thought that homosexuals should be able to legally marry. So, by modern standards, this group wasn’t liberal at all, since they weren’t woke.


11 posted on 07/02/2024 4:20:32 PM PDT by Dr. Franklin ("A republic, if you can keep it." )
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To: DallasBiff

In the last 100yrs-

Douglas wins by a very large margin

Marshall noses out Sotomayor for second place.

Brennan, Stevens and RBG are the next three.

Jackson and Kagan are next on the list.


12 posted on 07/02/2024 4:27:10 PM PDT by Freest Republican (There is no tyranny that cannot be justified by imbeciles)
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To: Nateman
Upon hearing of Ginsburg’s demise I danced a little. Ding Dong the witch is dead!
As the Irish say, "death comes to us all".

13 posted on 07/02/2024 4:33:20 PM PDT by Dr. Franklin ("A republic, if you can keep it." )
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To: DallasBiff

Douglas’s notable opinions included Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)—which established the constitutional right to privacy, and was foundational to later cases such as Eisenstadt v. Baird, Roe v. Wade, Lawrence v. Texas and Obergefell v. Hodges—Skinner v. Oklahoma (1942), United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. (1948), Terminiello v. City of Chicago (1949), Brady v. Maryland (1963), and Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections (1966).

Douglas also served as an associate justice in the landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education (1954), a Supreme Court case that outlawed segregation in American public schools. He wrote notable concurring or dissenting opinions in cases such as Dennis v. United States (1951), United States v. O’Brien (1968), Terry v. Ohio (1968), and Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969). He was also known as a strong opponent of the Vietnam War and an ardent advocate of environmentalism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_O._Douglas


14 posted on 07/02/2024 4:36:20 PM PDT by Freest Republican (There is no tyranny that cannot be justified by imbeciles)
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To: Freest Republican
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_O._Douglas

From memory, Douglas also dissented in a denial of certiorari in a case challenging a disorderly conduct statute as overly broad and constitutionally vague. I can only imagine what he would think of all of the harassment laws, and other criminal statutes of the Administrative State.
15 posted on 07/02/2024 4:49:43 PM PDT by Dr. Franklin ("A republic, if you can keep it." )
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To: Dr. Franklin

That’s interesting and def fits him.

I have either never heard before or forgot but that page says he believed trees and other inanimate objects should have standing.


16 posted on 07/02/2024 5:17:22 PM PDT by Freest Republican (There is no tyranny that cannot be justified by imbeciles)
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To: DallasBiff

Brennan was on the NJ Supreme Court and Arthur Vanderbilt was the NJ Chief Justice and Brennan’s mentor. The story is that Brennan read a speech written by Vanderbilt because Vanderbilt couldn’t deliver it. The speech was favorably reported and that’s why Ike appointed Brennan. That’s the story anyway.

Another story. Ike was asked what his biggest mistake was and Ike said “Two of them are on the Supreme Court.” Harlan the Elder wasn’t a liberal or a progressive. He just didn’t believe segregation was consitutional (Harlan the Younger wasn’t very liberal or progressive either). More recent justices could replace Harlan on the list.


17 posted on 07/02/2024 5:27:17 PM PDT by x
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To: DallasBiff

The Wise Latina hands down. She might as well call in her vote. Automatic liberal vote. I don’t even have to check.


18 posted on 07/02/2024 6:04:19 PM PDT by vespa300
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To: Freest Republican
That’s interesting and def fits him. I have either never heard before or forgot but that page says he believed trees and other inanimate objects should have standing.

It's been a few years since I remember reading the case in the law library. It may have been Hicks v. District of Columbia, 383 U.S. 252 (1966) which wasn't a disorderly conduct statute, but vagrancy. Frankly, I am tired of hearing that people don't have standing to object to rigged elections in court.
19 posted on 07/02/2024 9:02:34 PM PDT by Dr. Franklin ("A republic, if you can keep it." )
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To: Freest Republican
That’s interesting and def fits him.

Just imagine what the modern leftist femi-nazis would think of his last two wives: a 23 year old college student, and a 22 year old waitress. It was controversial at the time, but unlike guys like Clinton, Douglas actually married these ladies.
20 posted on 07/03/2024 7:44:41 AM PDT by Dr. Franklin ("A republic, if you can keep it." )
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