A recent popular topic has been that progressives reproduce at a much lower rate than conservatives, and others among the politically incorrect. Humorist Peachy Keenan was conflicted and admitted that even though she is a pro-natalist who wants Western birth rates up above the replacement level, she’s happy to see the Left face self-imposed extinction. (I’m not aware of any studies connecting the progressive birth dearth to the many studies showing that people on the left tend to be uggos.)
When it comes to Supreme Court justices, this has real, practical implications. Non-left justices tend to have spouses, children, and therefore houses. People know their addresses: neighbors, schools, they may even be in the publicly accessible (and now on-line) tax records, not even hidden by an LLC, shell company, or trust, as the Biden family’s Georgetown home is. The left-leaning justices are more likely to be childless. Elena Kagan is believed to live in a grand old co-op, near D.C.’s beautiful but dangerous Meridian Hill Park. (With co-ops, the only “name” that appears in tax records is that of the cooperative association.) Sonia Sotomayor lives a few blocks away in a pricey one-bedroom (though it has two bathrooms). Presumably Sotomayor lives alone. Kagan may have a partner, but if there are any kids that information is more carefully kept private than is her rumored lesbianism.
Ketanji Brown Jackson is the outlier of the liberal troika. She actually has a husband, Patrick Jackson, and they actually had kids, daughters Talia and Leila. But the kids grew up and went off to college, and now the Jacksons are two, not four, empty nesters.
Demonstrating what an insular little bubble the Democrat party nationally is, Justice Jackson’s home was almost exactly across the street from the house where Judge Boasberg, the judge who thinks he was elected to shape American foreign policy and order planes back and forth, still lives. Jackson and her husband sold the home a year ago, and some boring old private sector mergers and acquisitions lawyer lives there now, after giving the Jacksons $2.6 million.
I believe Justice Jackson sold her house and purchased her next residence right around the time she was filling her financial disclosures. Business news websites actually call me a few times a year trying to figure out where D.C. worthies are parking their money in real estate (hint for the press: from where did the $3 million in cash Joe and Dr. Jill bought their Rehoboth Beach bayside manse come?). And some of them called me about Justice Jackson. She sold the house across the street from Judge Boasberg and moved to… they didn’t know. She didn’t show up in D.C. tax records or any of these online databases like Radaris or TruePeopleSearch or VoterRecord or Nuwber. Nor did her husband Dr. (real doctor) Patrick Jackson.
But what is known is that she sold her Huntington Street house in the Chevy Chase section of D.C. for $2.6 million, and on what date and with what realtor. If you assume that the Jacksons’ listing agent on their home sale was also their buyer agent on their next purchase, and that they bought a new place shortly after selling the old place, the empty nester Jacksons’ most likely residence is a $1.2 million, cash purchase, two-level, three-bedroom penthouse with a large roofdeck, down in D.C.’s newly gentrified (a lot of low income black people were sent packing!) Waterfront neighborhood. This condo settlement happened about three weeks after their home went under contract, and a couple of weeks before the settlement on their house. Water Street is very convenient to the Supreme Court. This particular unit is owned by a trust, the trustee being one James W. McTarnaghan.
Mr. McTarnaghan is a lawyer with the establishment Democrat firm that is so much in the news, Perkins Coie LLP. He is suspended from practicing law in California.
You can’t get more Democrat than that!
What IS a primary residence?
Image from Grok.