There is a lot of discussion about the leanings of the Supreme Court. Is it really a conservative court now with the addition of Gorsuch and Kavanaugh? Yes, but maybe not as much as many people think.
Three political scientists (Lee Epstein, Andrew D. Martin, and Kevin Quinn) did an analysis of each of the justices. They rated each on on a scale of -1 to +1. The -1 score would be very liberal, while the +1 score would be very conservative. A score of 0 would be moderate.
It turns out that the most liberal justices are Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, with Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan also on the liberal side of the scale.
The most conservative justices are Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, with Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito also solidly in the conservative camp.
The most interesting is Chief Justice John Roberts. He is slightly conservative, with a score very close to 0. That means he is probably the swing justice now.
Here is the score of each justice:
Sonia Sotomayor (-0.521)
Ruth Bader Ginsburg (-0.518)
Elena Kagan (-0.312)
Stephen Breyer (-.280)
John Roberts (+0.089)
Samuel Alito (+0.387)
Neil Gorsuch (+0.486)
Brett Kavanaugh (+0.693)
Clarence Thomas (+0.725)
