Axios: “The Supreme Court continued to lean conservative during its most recent term, according to preliminary data. Why it matters: After overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, the court continued to push American law toward the right — including in its historic decisions last week on affirmative action and gay rights.

• Driving the news: Preliminary data following a contentious 2022-23 Supreme Court term shows Justice Brett Kavanaugh remained the court’s “median justice.”
• That means the court is conservative enough that its center falls squarely on the right.
  Justice Samuel Alito became the court’s most conservative member, surpassing Justice Clarence Thomas for the first time since both have served on the high court.
• How it works: The “Martin-Quinn score,” developed by Andrew D. Martin of Washington University in St. Louis and Kevin Quinn of Emory University, measures the ideology of Supreme Court justices dating back to 1937.
• The score is calculated using data from each Supreme Court term and measured on an “ideological continuum.” The current estimates are preliminary, and final versions of the scores will be available later in the summer.
• Details: In her first term on the court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was on the liberal side, but less so than justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. Historically, the court’s most conservative median justice was Byron White in 1988, with a Martin-Quinn score of 1.096, compared with Kavanaugh’s 0.524 this term.
• The big picture: The recent term also saw wins for voting rights, including the justices deciding that states’ election laws can be challenged in court and striking down a Republican-drawn congressional map in Alabama. Go deeper: The political leanings of the Supreme Court justices.”