Recently confirmed Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch will be thrown into the middle of the 2017 oral argument season with the Court’s April hearings calendar beginning on April 17th. One of the first questions that has already generated speculation is how Gorsuch will rule on cases this Term. This post adds some insight into how…
Demystifying Differences Between this SCOTUS Confirmation and Others That Preceded It
The Supreme Court has a legacy as old as this nation (the Supreme Court Historical Society provides information about the Court’s history). History has been privy to various changes including the location of the Court which has shifted from New York to Philadelphia to Washington D.C. The Justices also ceased riding the circuits which took…
The Most Powerful Justices Across Time
Article III of the U.S. Constitution both limits the reach of the Supreme Court and at the same time gives the Justices great power. As the only branch of the federal government with life tenure, the judicial branch maneuvers oftentimes outside of public spotlight and so judges are not subject to the same public pressures…
Patterns of Eight Justices: Will They Persist with a New Court Member?
The Supreme Court has had eight members for over a year now. In that time the Justices authored seventy-seven majority opinions. Of those opinions sixty-eight were signed. Through this period there have been some interesting idiosyncrasies from the Justices that we haven’t seen in the past. We have seen new potential voting coalitions as well…
What Recent SCOTUS Confirmations Tell Us About the Gorsuch Hearings
Supreme Court confirmation hearings involve much pomp and circumstance. Recent nominees including Gorsuch (thus far) shy away from directly answering substantive policy questions, generally resorting to the retort that they do not wish to speak on issues that might come before the Court. For the senators, part of the confirmation game is strategic. Prior to…
The Final Stretch: Cases from the Last Two Months of Supreme Court Oral Arguments
Two months of oral arguments remain on the Supreme Court’s calendar. That equates to twenty-four arguments with eleven in March and thirteen in April (some with consolidated cases). The Court usually saves some of the most publicly recognized cases for the end of the term. Last year in March and April the Court took up…
The (Not So) New Face of the OSG
Surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly, the search for the new Solicitor General led to one of the individuals discussed as a likely candidate early on in the process. In the interim, a bevy of names were floated as possibilities including attorneys Chuck Cooper, George Conway, and Miguel Estrada. But as George Conway’s name faded…
Taking Care of Business
The Supreme Court tackles fewer cases by the year. SCOTUSBlog’s statistics as reported by First Mondays Podcast show that the Court has also been slower in writing signed opinions this term than in recent terms. What is leading to these changes? One clear anomaly from the Court’s norm is the length of time the Court…
Evaluating Speculation that The Ninth Circuit is the Lower Court SCOTUS Overturns the Most
Recently lots of hubbub was made of the Ninth Circuit’s decision to uphold a lower court’s order blocking the Trump Administration from enforcing its executive order on immigration including President Trump’s immediate Twitter response of “SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!” Right-wing pundits were quick to assail the Ninth…
When Justices Recuse, and When they Refuse
By Samuel Morse Over the summer, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made the following comments about then presidential-candidate Donald Trump: “He is a faker…He has no consistency about him. He says whatever comes into his head at the moment. He really has an ego. …How has he gotten away with not turning over his tax returns?…
Attorney Arguments 2016/2017
The Supreme Court released its final argument calendar of the term with thirteen arguments slated for April. Although this term started out slow, most likely due to the Justices’ apprehension at the possibility of reaching equal divisions in cases, case grants picked up pace especially after the presidential election. Though we won’t see a new…
Scaling Judge Gorsuch’s Opinions: Hints of a Possible Centrist
Two words that are regularly thrown around when discussing the Supreme Court (and politics generally) are “liberal” and “conservative.” On this note, recently a question that has gained much traction has to do with how liberal or conservative a Justice Judge Gorsuch will be if confirmed to the Court. A large problem with these terms…
Empirical SCOTUS 