# The Most Liberal/Conservative Supreme Ct. Member To-Date. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 7, 2006, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-liberal-conservative-supreme-ct-member-to-date/347365 "2006-03-07T13:02:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2006, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-liberal-conservative-supreme-ct-member-to-date/347365/1 "2006-03-07T13:02:02Z")
There’s something I’ve wondered for some time now. By general consensus, who is considered the most liberal U.S. Supreme Court member to-date, and who is the most conservative. Thank you in advance to all who reply 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2006, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-liberal-conservative-supreme-ct-member-to-date/347365/2 "2006-03-07T14:28:58Z")
By what criteria? Arguably any Supreme Court Justice who was in favor of maintaining the institution of slavery is far more “conservative” than Scalia, Rehnquist, or any of the modern-day right-wing justices. My own inchoate sense, which I can articulate further if anyone’s interested, would be that Arthur Goldberg is the most liberal Justice, jurisprudentially, and James Clark McReynolds probably the most conservative. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2006, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-liberal-conservative-supreme-ct-member-to-date/347365/3 "2006-03-07T14:31:24Z")
[QUOTE=Gadarene] By what criteria? [/QUOTE] I should also say that I am thinking more in the range of the 20th and 21st Century for this. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2006, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-liberal-conservative-supreme-ct-member-to-date/347365/4 "2006-03-07T14:37:51Z")
> [@](#): > > I should also say that I am thinking more in the range of the 20th and 21st Century for this. Why? What’s your cut-off date? (Note that both my picks are from the 20th century.) ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2006, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-liberal-conservative-supreme-ct-member-to-date/347365/5 "2006-03-07T14:42:14Z")
[QUOTE=Gadarene] Why? What’s your cut-off date? (Note that both my picks are from the 20th century.) [/QUOTE] I choose this time period because as you pointed out, in the distant past there were things like slavery that made the political climate much different than today. Arbitrarily, I am choosing the time from Jan. 1, 1900 to today. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2006, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-liberal-conservative-supreme-ct-member-to-date/347365/6 "2006-03-07T14:48:45Z")
> [@](#): > > I choose this time period because as you pointed out, in the distant past there were things like slavery that made the political climate much different than today. Arbitrarily, I am choosing the time from Jan. 1, 1900 to today. Well, my answers don’t change – [Arthur Goldberg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Goldberg) and [James Clark McReynolds](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clark_McReynolds) – but I will note that the title of your thread is inaccurate, as you’re not really asking about the most liberal and conservative justices “to date.” 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2006, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-liberal-conservative-supreme-ct-member-to-date/347365/7 "2006-03-07T15:48:10Z")
Why MacReynolds in particular as opposed to the other three Horsemen? –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2006, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-liberal-conservative-supreme-ct-member-to-date/347365/8 "2006-03-07T15:55:33Z")
> [@](#): > > Why MacReynolds in particular as opposed to the other three Horsemen? Because it’s my understanding, particularly after having read Barry Cushman’s _Rethinking the New Deal_, that McReynolds’s jurisprudence, more than any other Horseman, was borne less from a nuanced and pragmatic approach to the doctrinal underpinnings of classical legal thought, and more from his personal ideological convictions. As it says in his Wiki entry: > [@](#): > > In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson named him United States Attorney General and the next year appointed him to the Court. His opinions were terse and he did not often write dissents, considering it a waste of time. His fierce conservatism in the face of Franklin Roosevelt’s legislation to fight the Great Depression led to him being labeled, with his conservative brethren, one of the Four Horsemen, along with George Sutherland, Willis Van Devanter and Pierce Butler. McReynolds, who despised Roosevelt, voted to strike down the Tennessee Valley Authority, the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Social Security Act and continued to vote against New Deal measures after the Court’s 1937 “switch” to upholding New Deal legislation. With the death of Butler in 1939, McReynolds was the last of the Four Horsemen on the bench. > > McReynolds is widely considered one of the most unpleasant men to ever sit on the Court, being labeled “Scrooge” by Drew Pearson. He would not accept “Jews, drinkers, blacks, women, smokers, married or engaged individuals as law clerks.” He was a blatant anti-Semite and refused to sit near Louis Brandeis (the first Jew to sit on the Court) where he belonged on the basis of seniority for the Court’s annual picture to be taken in 1924; Chief Justice William Howard Taft decided that no Court picture would be taken that year. McReynolds refused to speak to Brandeis for three years following his appointment and when Brandeis retired in 1939, did not sign the customary dedicatory letter sent to Court members on their retirement. During Benjamin Cardozo’s swearing in ceremony he pointedly read a newspaper muttering “another one”, and did not attend Felix Frankfurter’s, exclaiming “My God, another Jew on the Court!” According to Knox, McReynolds never spoke to Cardozo at all. He was also a confirmed misogynist. McReynolds disliked liberals generally, and his unpleasant manner towards justice John Hessin Clarke is often blamed for Clarke’s premature retirement from the Court in 1922. Taft said McReynolds “seems to delight in making others uncomfortable.” Plus, he started serving on the Court earlier than any of the other Horsemen. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2006, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-liberal-conservative-supreme-ct-member-to-date/347365/9 "2006-03-09T23:20:53Z")
[QUOTE=Gadarene] My own inchoate sense, which I can articulate further if anyone’s interested, would be that Arthur Goldberg is the most liberal Justice, jurisprudentially [/QUOTE] I’ll bite. Especially given his short tenure on the Supreme Court, why Goldberg rather than Douglas or Brennan? I remember, btw, reading the headline at the time about his leaving the Court to become ambassador to the U.N., but I was pretty young then, and didn’t think much of it either way; I didn’t realize at that age just how different in power and prestige the two posts are. From this vantage point, though, it’s pretty incredible that even a talker like Lyndon Johnson was able to talk someone off the Supreme Court in order to become U.N. Ambassador. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2006, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-liberal-conservative-supreme-ct-member-to-date/347365/10 "2006-03-10T00:39:38Z")
> [@](#): > > I’ll bite. Especially given his short tenure on the Supreme Court, why Goldberg rather than Douglas or Brennan? Two words: Ninth Amendment. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2006, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-liberal-conservative-supreme-ct-member-to-date/347365/11 "2006-03-10T00:58:40Z")
[QUOTE=Gadarene] Two words: Ninth Amendment. 🙂 [/QUOTE] Damn, you’re right! He was almost as liberal as the Founding Fathers! 😃 OK, I’m being facetious here. Don’t mind me. If I have anything intelligent to say, I’ll come back later. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Age\_Quod\_Agis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d07c76/32.png) [@Age\_Quod\_Agis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Age_Quod_Agis)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2006, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-liberal-conservative-supreme-ct-member-to-date/347365/12 "2006-03-10T01:43:49Z")
[QUOTE=Gadarene] Well, my answers don’t change – [Arthur Goldberg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Goldberg) and [James Clark McReynolds](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clark_McReynolds) [/QUOTE] My thought upon reading the OP was “Brennan and the 4 Horsemen (4 way tie).” But I’ve been convinced by your arguments on McReynolds. And Goldberg is a great choice, if for no other reason than he laid the groundwork that many of Brennan’s most influential decisions were laid upon. (Goldberg was the Chuck Berry of liberal Supreme Court Justices.) But it’s difficult to overstate [William Brennan](http://www.michaelariens.com/ConLaw/justices/brennan.htm)’s influence on American jurisprudence. He had influential votes that swung the judiciary to the left on abortion rights, civil rights, voting rights, free speech, death penalty, the Establishment Clause, and criminals’ rights. Off the top of my head, I believe he wrote the opinions in _Texas v. Johnson_ and _New York Times v. Sullivan_ (if I remember correctly – a big “if” – one of my law school professors said that Brennan’s decision in \*NYT v. Sullivan \* was the first case to consider a “chilling effect” on speech). He’s one of the most-influential Justices ever, and is practically the embodiment of a Justice who believes in a “living Constitution.” So I think Goldberg was one of those stars that burns brightly, but burns out quickly. But Brennan gets my vote based on the sheer volume of liberal-osity (which is a totally cromulent word) in his long tenure. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2006, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-liberal-conservative-supreme-ct-member-to-date/347365/13 "2006-03-10T02:30:10Z")
I agree with everything you say, **AQA**. 🙂