I'm trying to get into the habit of referring to them as leftists instead of liberals because that's what they really are. Like their Marxist peers they have done a brilliant job (unfortunately for us) of hijacking our language and turning it on its head. I can't think of any SC decisions off the top of my head where I would be on the side of these leftists. My point is that Republican appointees (with the exception of Thomas and Scalia most of the time) have not been much good when it comes to interpreting the law as opposed to legislating from the bench.
1) You have no idea how anybody really votes on the Supreme Court and don't really follow SC decisions.
2) You simply can't get it through your skull that the Senate has been controlled by Democrats when most of the appointments have been made, which was my original point at the beginning of the whole discussion. And no, I do not think simply having one appointee after another shot down for their entire Presidency is an intelligent option. It's brainless.
The large number of 5-4 SC decisions in recent years should clue you in that there must be one group of 4 or 5 justices who usually vote conservative, and another group of 4 or 5 that usually votes liberal. In fact Rehnquist has been one of the most conservative justices. Here's a rating of justices' liberalism that I found on a website: Supreme Court Justices Liberalism in Civil Liberties and Economics Cases 1937-1994
| JUSTICE | Civil Liberties |
Economics |
| Rehnquist a | 19.3 | 42.2 |
| Stevens | 62.8 | 58.7 |
| O’Connor | 34.6 | 42.7 |
| Rehnquist b | 23.1 | 46.5 |
| Scalia | 29.7 | 44.1 |
| Kennedy | 36.5 | 45.4 |
| Souter | 54.0 | 53.8 |
| Thomas | 27.0 | 36.5 |
| Ginsburg | 61.4 | 59.0 |
| Breyer | 63.4 | 42.9 |
I assume the Civil Liberties category includes the Boy Scouts case, and the gun control decision next month would also fall under that category.