The ruling arrived as Republican-led state legislatures work to pass laws making it more difficult to access polls - which would have an especially adverse effect on people of color. In its vote on the case, the court reinstated two Arizona state laws that had previously been struck down by a federal appeals court in San Francisco - one that bars ballots cast in the wrong precinct from being counted, and another that bans the collection of absentee ballots by anyone other than a caregiver or relative. It was at the very end of the term that the court most noticeably asserted its conservative leaning, with a 6-3 ruling that gives states an expanded scope of power to impose restrictions on voting rights. (No Supreme Court vacancy occurred during Jimmy Carter’s term.) Only two Democratic presidents between Nixon and Trump - Clinton and Barack Obama - appointed justices to the court, and they appointed two each. Bush, and Donald Trump - who appointed nearly a dozen justices combined. After Nixon, five more Republican presidents followed - Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. But the era of a Supreme Court ruled by conservative views was put in motion long before that, beginning most notably with former president Richard Nixon, who appointed four justices. Ginsburg was nominated by then-President Bill Clinton to the bench and took her seat in 1993. But the death of Ginsburg has placed this moderation in jeopardy. That meant despite a series of Republican presidents working to cement a reliable majority on the court, rulings perceived largely as liberal victories - chief among them the establishment of a right to same-sex marriage, the preservation of abortion rights, and the continuation of the Affordable Care Act - still occurred. A shift toward the court becoming dominated by conservative views on the lawįor decades, the Supreme Court was relatively balanced, with a quartet of liberal justices often able to secure a swing vote from a member of the conservative wing in their favor.
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