In my recent two-part story dispelling the myths of Justice Kennedy as a "swing" justice and the Supreme Court as being highly partisan, I presented the percentage of conservative vs. Liberal rulings on split decisions. If you missed it here's the breakout:
Alito: 84% conservative
Roberts 82% conservative
Scalia 81% conservative
Thomas: 80% conservative
Kennedy 71% conservative
Breyer 21% conservative
Sotomayor: 19% conservative
Kagan 18% conservative
Ginsburg 15% conservative
We're more informed about our perceptions of specific politicians. So, I've decided take the voting records of US Senators and give you the closest ideological comparisons for each justice. This is based on their votes since Donald Trump became President. I only included those with a near identical match.
Alito: Rand Paul (83%)
Kennedy: Marco Rubio (68%)
Sotomayor: Kirsten Gillibrand (80%)
Kagan: Claire McCaskill (81%)
Ginsburg: Bill Nelson (85%)
This once again illustrates the point that there's often a disconnect between media advanced narratives and the actual facts of one's voting record. In fact, much of that is on display with our two senators. Rubio's record is more moderate than his reputation. Nelson, on the other end, is more liberal than often projected. Here's something that might be surprising. The two Senate leaders, Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer are likely less partisan than you'd imagine. The two leaders vote together on policy 35% of the time.
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