# Is the Supreme Court veering rightward? The ebb and flow of representation

## TL;DR

The Supreme Court shifted right in 2020-2021 but later moderated, though it remains more conservative than the public's preferences.

## Contribution

The study extends prior analysis with new data to show how the Court's ideological position fluctuates relative to public opinion.

## Key findings

- The Supreme Court moved sharply right between 2020 and 2021 due to Justice Amy Coney Barrett's appointment.
- The Court moderated in 2023 following backlash to the Dobbs v. Mississippi decision.
- Despite stable composition, the Court's decisions have shown ebb and flow in alignment with public preferences.

## Abstract

Conducting novel surveys that allow the first direct comparisons between Supreme Court decisions and public preferences, Jessee et al. find that the Court moved sharply to the right between 2020 and 2021 and attribute this change to the replacement of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg with Justice Amy Coney Barrett. We extend Jessee et al.'s analysis by presenting additional data gathered between 2022 and 2025. We find that the Supreme Court maintained its conservative position in 2022 but then moderated in 2023 following the backlash to the decision in Dobbs v. Mississippi (2022), which repealed Roe v. Wade (1973). We show that despite the composition of the Court remaining stable and the identity of the median voter being unchanged between 2021 and 2025, there is an ebb and flow to the representativeness of Court decisions, with the institution sometimes further to the right of the public and then sometimes shifting closer to the average voter. However, despite these important periodic shifts, the Court has, since 2021, generally remained in a more conservative position relative to the ideological positioning of the American electorate. Our findings have important implications for the legitimacy of the Court and the stability of the rule of law.