Jackson, Sotomayor neck and neck for label of most left-leaning justice

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s first term on the bench has left Supreme Court watchers wondering whether the court’s first Black female jurist is its most liberal or whether that title belongs to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court’s first Hispanic member.

“I’d say they’re very close together, and I’d be hard-pressed to argue who is ‘more left.’ Their styles are also similar, perhaps because of their experience as trial judges,” said Ilya Shapiro, director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute.

Justice Sotomayor, nominated by President Obama, made history in 2009 by becoming the first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court. She had experience as a federal judge in the Southern District of New York and on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Justice Jackson had experience as a judge at U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and spent a few months on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. She is the first Supreme Court justice to have been a federal public defender.

Liberals, pleased with Judge Jackson’s record of ruling against President Trump on several occasions while serving on the lower courts, cheered her appointment, which fulfilled President Biden’s campaign promise to nominate the first Black female justice.

Adam Feldman, Supreme Court scholar and creator of the Empirical SCOTUS blog, said his calculations show that Justice Sotomayor is the court’s most liberal jurist.

“Sotomayor is to the left of Jackson, although perhaps less than some expected this term. We see a bit of this difference through these two justices’ votes this term and especially with Jackson ending in the majority more frequently than Sotomayor for the term,” Mr. Feldman said.

He noted that Justice Jackson dissented with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Brett M. Kavanaugh in a court decision that let stand a California law requiring breeding pigs to be housed in more space. Animal rights activists championed the law, but pork industry officials argued that it would change production nationwide and increase costs.

The dissent said the case should be returned to lower courts for further review in light of the pork industry’s argument about the burden on interstate commerce.

“This would be a highly unusual lineup in dissent for Justice Sotomayor to join,” Mr. Feldman said.

Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law, said Justice Jackson is the most liberal justice. He pointed to her reasoning in the term’s most-watched case over the legality of affirmative action.

“Justice Jackson is to the left of Justice Sotomayor. She dissented in a few cases where Justice Sotomayor was in the majority. Even in the affirmative action case, Justice Sotomayor’s dissent dealt with precedent while Justice Jackson’s dissent focused entirely on racial issues. She did not attempt, as she suggested during oral argument, that the original meaning of the 14th Amendment supports affirmative action,” Mr. Blackman said.

The court’s six-conservative majority ruled last week that affirmative action runs afoul of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution because it creates racial preferences.

Justice Jackson argued in her dissent that racial gaps in America remain and that college admission programs promoting diversity create societal progress.

“Our country has never been colorblind,” she wrote.

Axios reported Monday that Justice Jackson is to the right of (or more conservative than) Justices Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, the court’s other liberal jurist, based on the Martin-Quinn score, an assessment of the justices’ political ideology.

The Martin-Quinn calculations also suggest that Justice Alito was the most conservative justice for the 2022 term and Justice Kavanaugh occupied the median position on the court.