Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship/Breakdown of Justices by Confidence Categories
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June 2020
| Total Number of Justices | Strong Democrats | Mild Democrats | Indeterminate Justices | Mild Republicans | Strong Republicans |
| 341 | 35 | 78 | 49 | 125 | 54 |
| 10.20% | 22.90% | 14.40% | 36.70% | 15.80% | |
Texas has the most Strong Republican justices, with 10. Altogether, Texas has 18 seats on its two courts of last resort, and every seat is occupied by a justice with a Republican Confidence Score. In Adam Bonica and Michael Woodruff’s CFscores study, Texas was the third-most right-leaning state supreme court.
Alabama has the highest percentage of justices with Strong Republican Confidence Scores (78%). The Alabama Supreme Court is composed of seven justices with Strong Republican Confidence Scores out of nine total justices. There are 24 states that have no justices with Strong Republican Confidence Scores. In Bonica and Woodruff’s study, Alabama was the fourth-most right-leaning state supreme court.
Texas has the greatest number of justices with Mild Republican Confidence Scores, with eight. There are 11 states that have no justices with Mild Republican Confidence Scores.
North Carolina has the highest concentration of justices with Strong Democratic Confidence Scores (86%). North Carolina has the greatest number of justices with Strong Democratic Confidence Scores, with six. The only other justice on the seven-member court is a justice with a mild Republican Confidence Score. There are 33 states that have no justices with Strong Democratic Confidence Scores. In Bonica and Woodruff’s study, North Carolina was not in the top five most left-leaning state supreme courts.
Washington has the greatest number of justices with Mild Democratic Confidence Scores, with eight. The only other justice on the nine-member court registered an Indeterminate Confidence Score. There are 18 states that have no mild Democrat justices. In Bonica and Woodruff’s study, Washington was the fifth-most left-leaning state supreme court.
According to our study, 33.1% of justices record Democratic Confidence Scores, 14.4% of justices record Indeterminate Confidence Scores, and 52.5% of justices record Republican Confidence Scores. In Bonica and Woodruff’s study, conducted in 2012, 50.3% of justices recorded liberal ideological leanings and 48.6% of justices recorded conservative ideological leanings. The most common Confidence Score across the state supreme courts is Mild Republican (36.7%). The least common Confidence Score is Strong Democrat (10.2%). As a metric for comparison, Stanford’s CFscores study, also conducted in 2012, found that 40 (11.8%) justices had a “very conservative ideological leaning,” and 38 (11.2%) justices had a “very liberal ideological leaning.” That same study found that 71 (20.9%) justices had a “strong liberal ideological leaning” and 70 (20.5%) justices had a “strong conservative ideological leaning.” If the comparison of our scores and CFscores is any indicator, the relative proportional representation of each political leaning across all state supreme courts in America has shifted to Republican control from the last term of Barack Obama’s presidency and into the first term of Donald Trump’s presidency.
- To see more about the states with the most homogeneous courts in our study, see this page.
About the authors
Samuel Postell is a staff writer on Ballotpedia's Marquee Team and a lecturer at the University of Dallas.
Luke Seeley is a staff writer on Ballotpedia's Marquee Team.
Heidi Jung developed the graphics.
Ballotpedia CEO Leslie Graves, Ballotpedia COO Gwen Beattie, Editor-in-Chief Geoff Pallay, and Ballotpedia Vice President of external relations Alison Prange reviewed the report and provided feedback as did editor Cory Eucalitto. Outside reviewers included Dr. G. Alan Tarr from Rutgers University, and Dr. Aman McLeod from the University of Idaho College of Law.
Footnotes
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