The New York Times' Supreme Court correspondent recently looked at how deeply politics have infiltrated federal courts, and his findings completely contradict what the Supreme Court's most outspoken justice has said about the issue.
Citing a book due out in January called The Behavior of Federal Judges, Liptak reported both Supreme Court and federal appeals court justices appointed by Republicans are more likely to vote conservatively.
Above The Law highlighted Tuesday the most interesting part of Adam Liptak's article (emphasis ours):
"Many judges hate it when news reports note this sort of thing, saying it undermines public trust in the courts by painting them as political actors rather than how they like to see themselves — as disinterested guardians of neutral legal principles. But there is a lot of evidence that the party of the president who appointed a judge is a significant guide to how that judge will vote on politically charged issues like affirmative action."
And things have only gotten worse in the Supreme Court, Liptak reported.
The correlation between Republican-appointed justices voting more conservatively "has become more pronounced since the retirements of Justices John Paul Stevens and David H. Souter, who were appointed by Republican presidents but were members of the court’s liberal wing," Liptak wrote for the Times.
"These days, for the first time in many decades, all of the court’s more liberal members were appointed by Democrats and all of its more conservative ones by Republicans."
Of course, Justice Antonin Scalia would disagree.
Scalia flipped out at a reporter in September when the reporter asking about the divisive politicization of the Supreme Court.
"It really enrages me to hear people refer to it as a politicized court," Scalia spat out, adding that he "couldn't care less who the president is."
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