Votes

The SCOTUS Tortoise and the Hare

With nine justices on the Supreme Court, consensus among five justices is necessary for any successful voting coalition. Knowing this, there appears to be little incentive to vote alone. Solo votes don’t have the power to generate precedent and do not even foreshadow any likelihood of gaining more adherents to such a view among a…

How Oral Argument Data Back Up Expectations in the Court’s Affirmative Action Cases

Yesterday the Supreme Court heard the long-awaited oral arguments in cases that may overturn the right to affirmative action in higher education. Some states like Michigan already banned action through popular vote. For states that still allow it though the question of constitutionality is on the Court’s agenda. In Grutter v. Bollinger, decided in 2003,…

What will the Roberts Court’s most lasting legacy be?

After the Court overruled Roe v. Wade with the Dobbs decision many people would likely answer that the Roberts Court’s lasting legacy will be doing away with a constitutional right to an abortion. Looking at individual decisions though, the Roberts Court has structurally changed quite a bit of policy with landmark decisions in areas such…

Is the Roberts Court the Least Productive Court of All Time?

The Supreme Court was not always the powerful institution is it today. The original lack of power was part of the Court’s institutional design. Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federal Paper #78, “…the judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power; that it can never attack with success either of the other…

What to Expect from Justice Breyer’s Retirement and Judge Jackson’s (Presumptive) Confirmation to the Court

Now that Senator Manchin declared he will vote to confirm Judge Jackson to the Supreme Court, Jackson’s confirmation in a week or so is all but a foregone conclusion. Will Jackson usher in a new era of judging on the Court? This outcome is very unlikely. The Court now has six conservative, republican nominated justices…

A Comprehensive Look at Judge Amy Coney Barrett

Judge Amy Coney Barrett, now Supreme Court nominee, has followed a well-worn path of justices before her. President Trump nominated her to the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on November 2, 2017. She was then nominated to the Supreme Court, just under three years later, on September 26, 2020. Chief Justice Roberts, nominated by…

RBG’s Departure Might Look A Lot Like Thurgood Marshall’s

Justice Ginsburg has had quite a few health scares over the past little over a decade. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2009 and subsequently resisted pressure to retire from the Court under Obama’s administration. With multiple hospital stays this year and a recurrence of her pancreatic cancer, many question how long she will…

Clear Polarization in Second Level Supreme Court Decision Making

Over the past five Supreme Court Terms the justices have issued 157 separate opinions from Court orders. These are cases that are not orally argued and do not receive full merits consideration. We do not necessarily know all the justices votes in these cases – only the ones the justices made public through signing onto separate opinions. Of these 157 opinions, only two include at least one conservative and one liberal justice signed onto the same opinion. Both are dissents from Justices Gorsuch and Sotomayor in criminal cases. The other 155 separate opinions split the justices ideologically or are solo authored. The spotlight on the Court’s polarization could not be clearer.

Precedent: Which Justices Practice What They Preach

While Supreme Court Justices are by no means bound by their past decisions, the Court often respects its past decisions for a variety of reasons. The reasons given for adhering the Court’s past precedents are often across between cases. Justice Kagan offered her interpretation for remaining faithful to precedent in dissent in last term’s Knick…

Interesting Meetings of the Minds of Supreme Court Justices

Unanimity in the Supreme Court used to be the norm. In the early Supreme Court there were few dissents and so there was little opportunity to see differences between the justices’ views outside of how they authored their majority opinions. This practice has changed over the years as now decisions are more frequently divided rather…

The Singular Relationship Between the D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court

With the Supreme Court term about to begin many eyes will be on a small handful of cases. The interest in these cases generally surrounds certain salient case issues. In this respect this term has a lot to offer. The Court will review the federal government’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy. It will look at the constitutionality…

A Class of Their Own: The Supreme Court’s Recent Take on Class Actions

Supreme Court decisions tend to impact more than just the individuals named in a lawsuit. Supreme Court Rule 10, the one official written description of factors that may lead to a higher likelihood of a cert grant focuses primarily on areas with inconsistent court decisions across the country. One of the rationales behind this disparate…