In terms of the overall judiciary, we currently have more sitting judges nominated by Democratic Presidents than you'd expect due to simple chance - if its a war both sides have been fighting, the Democrats have been fighting it longer and harder. Coupled with the way the nation has been shifting steadily rightwards - a 70s-era "conservative" justice would be considered a "liberal" today - and it's pretty easy to see why what Obama (or Lithwick) considered 'non-controversial' might not be anything of the sort.

What about Georgia's two GOP Senators? Is the nominee they support "controversial" or is it simply a way to politicize the nominations process?

"Beverly Martin, an appeals court nominee supported by Georgia's two conservative Republican senators, was unanimously reported out of the Senate judiciary committee by a voice vote more than 46 days ago. She, too, has not received a Senate floor vote."

If you consider elections to be "simple chance". Reality is that Dems have won the majority of support in 4:3 since the Depression. And if you want to make it in the lifetime of current sitting judges - figure you are 40 when you get first elevated and retire in your early 70s, that puts us back to Carter. That gives us a 5:4 edge on Democratic vote vs. conservative.

And no the nation hasn't shifted "steadily rightwards". The GOP has, but the nation itself has actually shifted steadily leftwards. Hence why the gap between the most liberal GOPers and rightist Dems now exists. It used to be that Moderate GOPers like Nelson Rockefeller were to the left of conservative Dems. Now Olympia Snowe- the most liberal GOPer is barely overlapping with the conservative Dems like Tester and Webb.

So for CONSERVATIVES "70s era conservative justice" seems LIBERAL. But given the de facto legalization of Pot, the re-suspension of the DP, and the expansion of women's rights ranging from reproductive rights to "burning bed" syndrome - sorry, the country has moved left in its conception of legal protections.

And as population distributions go - more and more of the country has opted to live in blue states and blue regions. Sorry, you are losing.

1. I wasn't talking elections as simple chance - I was talking nominations. There are a sufficiently large number of nominations that their distribution should be based largely on the presence in the Oval Office. If we assume your '30 years' number, then we'd expect 66% of the nominees to be from Republican Presidents and 33% to be from Democratic (Democrats have held the White House for 10 of the past 30 years). 58% are from Republicans. 2. If you can think of a major Supreme Court case from the 70s that wouldn't be decided in a more 'conservative' direction than it was then, I'd love to hear about it. The nation is far more conservative than it was in the 70s. Even 'liberal Democrats' are far more conservative on most issues than they were in the 70s. 3. Population distribution. Actually, most migration in the U.S. is from blue states to red states. That's why the fastest growing states are generally red states.

Ah but Presence in the Oval Office is not a measure of whether the judiciary is representative of the populace's understanding of jurisprudence.

You are also cherrypiking your data. You studiously ignore the fact that Carter Era appointees are still on the bench. But that's a small percentage increase. You also ignore the fact that GWB LOST both the popular vote and the EC college vote (had FL been properly recounted) in 2000. Which means that there was lots of political pressure on Congress NOT to pass radically conservative judges.

Also in those 30 years, The Senate has been in GOP hands for 17.5 out of 34 years. That means the 58% representation on the Bench is an OVER SAMPLING.

If you can think of a major Supreme Court case from the 70s that wouldn't be decided in a more 'conservative' direction than it was then, I'd love to hear about it.

You asserted THE COUNTRY is more conservative - not SCOTUS. SCOTUS is absolutely more conservative. Massively disproporiotonately so.

Even 'liberal Democrats' are far more conservative on most issues than they were in the 70s.

No not really. Kucinich, Maxine Waters, Charlie Rangle are no less liberal. What you have seen is that until the last election cycle, GOP has been more effective at winning elections at the National Level, in no small part due to the gerrymandering out of the 1980 and 1990 Censuses.

But at the Consumer Preference research level, the country is far more liberal. Gays are largely acceptable in open society, minorities in the "millenial generation" face far less discrimination (interracial couples are no longer unusual), women's assumptions about personal rights are far more entrenched (young women who claim NOT to be feminist would have been seen as radical feminists in the 70s based on their BEHAVIOUR). Pot is de facto legal. Marriage rates have stabilized at a level lower than the 1970s. Unmarried housing purchases are up. Dress styles are both far more revealing as well as less traditionally constrained. Environmental consciousness is de facto assumed.

I dunno what more measures of a more LIBERAL society you would like

As for where population flows are going - Cities for the first time broke the 70% barrier an the population living in the coastal regions similarly hit records. With the exception of the Gulf Coast area, these are all BLUE regions. And even within red states, cities like Austin and Minneapolis all show Blue against a red background Reality is that the population is moving towards the more productive blue regions precisely because they are more productive both in a Per Capita GDP and a Net GDP production basis.

We blue folks subsidize the red lifestyle. You should be more grateful

1. I'm not cherrypicking anything - you were the one who set down the '30 year' rule. A rule that, by the way, overstates Democratic occupany in the White House by starting and ending during Democratic Presidencies. Why aren't we talking about Ford and Nixon appointees, too? 2. The Senate doesn't appoint judicial candidates, so the majority party doesn't really matter in terms of whether a nominee is nominated by a Republican or Democratic nominee. 3. I'm curious how you explain the fact that far more people describe themselves as 'conservative' than 'liberal' - and have for well over a decade. Since such comparisons are in contrast the government, this indicates that our government for the past decade has been insufficiently conservative, not excessively so. 4. Pot was 'de facto' legal in the 70s as well. So was cocaine, for that matter. Law enforcement has gotten considerably more strict over the past few decades. At the same time, approval for abortion has declined, support for the death penalty increased, support for gun rights has increased. Conservative economic theories, fringe outliers in the 70s, have overtaken and obsoleted progressive economic theories. Big government liberalism is at a low ebb of approval. Free trade is the standard. 5. Take a look at the following chart: <link> You'll note that the South and Mountain States are experiencing the greatest growth. While the blue Midwest, Northeast and California are all relatively flat (or declining). People are moving from the blue states to the red states.

I based it on an appointment age of 40 and an avg retirement age of early 70s. That's 33-35 years.

2009 -35 == 1974, Gerry Ford's last year as a lame duck No Cherry picking on my part.

The Senate doesn't appoint judicial candidates

True, but it approves them based on the Public's desires.

I'm curious how you explain the fact that far more people describe themselves as 'conservative' than 'liberal' - and have for well over a decade

Self description is notoriously inaccurate. Most Sitcoms are based on this premise. How people self-identify is very different than how they act or live their lives. Hence my focus on Consumer Preference research.

Pot was 'de facto' legal in the 70s as well. So was cocaine, for that matter

No it wasn't. There was no national policy for the DEA and FBI not to enforce Pot in states with Medical MJ laws. IN fact there were no medical MJ laws.

At the same time, approval for abortion has declined, support for the death penalty increased, support for gun rights has increased.

Not quite. The importance of the right to abortion in some cases has actually climbed to over 70%.

DP support has only increased since 9/11 and it already is receding in the face of the scandals on innocents on death row and as 9/11 becomes a more distant memory. The increase in DP support was a dialectic blip caused by 9/11

"gun Rights" support hasn't increased particularly at all (setting aside there is no such thing- there is only the 2nd amendment rights which have actually DECLINED in support). You've had some rulings in your favour and about a 5% shift towards gun fetishism since 1980.

As for the chart - yes the STATES are experiencing that growth, but much of it is in cities - particularly blue cities. CO - is blue - particularly denver. And even in red states like Idaho - go back to my cartographs - Cities like Boise are the ones that are solidly blue.

CA isn't all that flat. Its growth was 303,343 - second only to Texas. This is where the bias of WSJ content shows up even in the news. If you were to rank the growth not based on percent but on actual numbers (which for political affiliation purposes is the more significant since a popl of 1 gaining 1 more is 100% growth but meaningless in terms of impact on national voting)

We then get a Ranking of TX, CA, GA, FL (Red Blue Red Blue) NC AZ - both red, CO, WA both blue Tenn. Red, SC Red, Ill Blue, NV - Purple/Blue, VA Purple/Blue. So while the rate of growth of Red STATES is higher than blue, the absolute numbers are much closer.

To assert that California is "relatively flat" when it have 303,343 inmigration means you are really engaged in wishful thinking. Reality is the country is more liberal than it has ever been and moving even more so in that direction. Average age of marriage is up. Average number of partners before marriage is up, Church attendence is flat (except among the hispanics and muslims which Conservatives have alienated)

and if you look at the Roper voting data the conservatives are dying off.

If you look president by president at the number of judicial confirmations since FDR, you see that there is a general trend of growing number of confirmations per year in district and appellate courts (presumably a function of the growing judiciary).

The notable bust in this trend is that Ford had an extremely low rate of judicial confirmation (in district and appellate courts) and then Carter had numbers well above average in his term. My interpretation would be that judges refused to leave their posts and that the senate was obstructionist post-Watergate. Once Ford was out there was a sudden burst of judgeships to be filled.

I think the effect that Xando observed may be more a function of Republicans tending to nominate older justices than Democrats which leads to Republican appointees serving shorter terms (though I don't actually have data to support this hypothesis).

As an aside, from Eisenhower until Bush II, every Republican president had appointed as many or more Supreme Court justices per year in office than every Democratic president.

@Degsme and Xando...

How are migration patterns indicative of changing political attitudes? People abandoning the blue states for red? People abandoning red counties for blue ones? How does that change anything in the aggregate (except for short term changes in the number of people represented by a political EC vote or congressional district)?

If people abandon a blue state for a red one, do they stop paying ACLU dues and join the NRA? As migration within a red state moves people from the rural counties to the blue cities, do they stop watching Nascar and become soccer fans? Wouldn't both trends tend to create more purple than anything?

What am I missing here?

(Damn, I hate these ludicrous red/blue labels. I'll give my next paycheck to the network that switches the colors on their next electoral map.)