Abstract
This concluding chapter addresses the developments in the ideological composition and direction of the Court in recent years. With the replacement of Anthony Kennedy by Brett Kavanaugh, the Court has shifted to a majority of conservatives. However, within the conservative and liberal blocs considerable variations have emerged in recent years, including the tendency of Chief Justice Roberts to side with the liberal Justices. Another division is emerging on the left, with Justices Breyer and Kagan more likely to rule with the conservatives on some controversies, showing a clear distinction from Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor. This chapter reexamines those patterns in regard to the year’s cases, concluding the book with a discussion of the current state of ideological divisions on the Court.
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Notes
- 1.
The exception is the fourteen months between the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016 and the confirmation of his successor Neil Gorsuch in April 2017; during that time the Court was tied 4-4.
- 2.
This comparison is based on analysis of data in the Supreme Court Database, http://scdb.wustl.edu.
- 3.
On ideological voting patterns in the 2018 term, see Chapter 14 of SCOTUS 2019, “Justice Brett Kavanaugh Joins the Court,” by Lawrence Baum. As described in that chapter (p. 149 n. 7), “in general, votes for litigants who claim that their civil liberties have been violated are characterized as liberal; votes for businesses in conflicts with consumers, employees, and government regulation are characterized as conservative.” For that chapter and this one, Justices’ votes were counted only in cases in which the litigants’ competing positions clearly could be characterized as conservative and liberal. (Thus, some cases treated as ideological in other sources are not included in the counts of votes in this chapter.) Cases that met this criterion were included if the Court reached decisions with opinions after hearing oral argument.
- 4.
Justice Kagan was recused in one of these cases, so the vote was 5-3.
- 5.
See Chapter 5.
- 6.
- 7.
See Chapter 7 on June Medical and Chapter 4 on DHS v. University of California.
- 8.
See Chapter 2.
- 9.
See chapter 11.
- 10.
Ronn Blitzer, “Roberts Drifts Away from Conservative Bloc, Angering Republicans and Exciting the Left,” Fox News (1 July 2020).
- 11.
See chapter 14.
- 12.
Justices who disagree with the Court’s rulings on applications for stays do not always announce their dissents.
- 13.
The cases were Republican National Committee v. Democratic National Committee (Wisconsin); Merrill v. People First of Alabama; Texas Democratic Party v. Abbott; Raysor v. DeSantis (Florida) and Little v. Reclaim Idaho.
- 14.
In the Idaho case, Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg dissented from a Court stay that prevented relaxation of the rules for gathering initiative signatures.
- 15.
See Stephen I. Vladeck, “The Solicitor General and the Shadow Docket,” Harvard Law Review 133 (November 2019): 123–163.
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Baum, L. (2021). Ideology and the Court’s Work. In: Marietta, M. (eds) SCOTUS 2020. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53851-4_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53851-4_15
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