• Data compiled by Adam Feldman and Jake Truscott show that 14 decisions split judges 6 to 3 along ideological lines last term, but the 2022-2023 term will see a 6-3 split among judges. Only five made the same decision.
• Justice Jackson voted 84% of the time in the majority, which surpassed the number of liberal justices who voted in the first half, and was won by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. exceeded the number of votes this term.
• “In general, voting patterns in a particular period are a function of the mix of cases heard in that period, rather than changes in court direction or individual judges’ approaches,” said Case Western Reserve University law professor. says. Jonathan Adler told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

While the Supreme Court handed conservatives a big win late this quarter, voting patterns revealed that the court was not as dauntingly conservative as critics claimed.

After the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action and announced a major ruling nullifying President Joe Biden’s student-loan forgiveness plan, Democrats again began clamoring for courtroom jams, term limits, and a judge’s code of ethics. Called the court “MAGA” and “illegal”. ‘ and as Biden put it, ‘not a normal courtroom.’ However, there were only five cases in which judges were split 6-3 along ideological lines during the 2022-23 term, the fewest in the last six terms, and fewer than the 14 similar splits in the previous term. . according to This is based on data compiled by Supreme Court statistical analysts Adam Feldman and Jake Truscott on the website Empirical Scotus.

Ilya Shapiro, director and senior fellow of the Manhattan Institute’s Constitutional Research Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation, “Just a week or so ago, before the affirmative action ruling…the general story was, wow, this. The court was all crazy,” he said. “The last handful of cases did not change that statistical pattern,” she said.

Feldman and Truscott said Justice Jackson had an 84% chance of winning the majority, which surpassed the turnout of liberal justices last term. She also had a larger majority than Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Chief Justice John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett won the majority with 96%, 95% and 91% respectively, according to Feldman and Truscott.

“In general, voting patterns in a particular period are a function of the mix of cases heard in that period, rather than changes in court direction or individual judges’ approaches,” said Case Western Reserve University law professor. says. Jonathan Adler told DCNF. “This is because the cases heard in any given period are not fully representative of the broad range of issues that may be raised in court, and the number of cases heard by the Court each period has decreased. This is more true than ever, given that

“Thus, when comparing this quarter with last quarter, the ideological direction of the courts has not changed significantly, but the courts are hearing a different mix of cases, and the voting patterns are different given the issues in those cases. He continued. (Related: Democrats call for Supreme Court meeting again after several decisions don’t go as planned)

Supreme Court Statistics. The frequency of the majority of judges in this term is
Kavanaugh 96%
Roberts 95%
Barrett 91%
Jackson 84%
Gorsuch 82%
Sotomayor 82%
Alito 80%
Kagan 80%
Thomas 76%

For more information, see this stats overview I made. @Jake Truscott_44 andhttps://t.co/euSF76zd1T

— Dr. Adam Feldman (@AdamSFeldman) June 30, 2023

Judge Neil Gorsuch broke with the conservative majority in the Navajo water rights case and sided with the liberals. Chief Justices John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh Kavanaugh joined the trio of liberal justices and formed a 5-4 majority to crack down on Alabama’s congressional district map for violating the Voting Rights Act.

In Moore v. Harper’s 6-3 ruling, the unusual majority also rejected the “legislative independence doctrine,” the notion that Congress has unlimited constitutional power to administer federal elections without review by state courts. bottom. Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion was also joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Other high-profile lawsuits received unexpected unanimous support. All nine judges in Groff v. DeJoy sided with Christian postal workers, ruling that employers cannot refuse religious accommodations without incurring a “substantial increase in costs.”

In Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), judges unanimously withdrew regulatory powers under the Clean Water Act (CWA) to a couple who were prevented by the EPA from building a home on their property near Priest. brought victory. Lake in Idaho.

Moreover, in a case that has split along predicted ideological lines, polls show that Americans are evenly divided, or mostly in agreement, about the outcome. according to to the Washington Post.

“The judges are all acting in good faith to get the case right as they see it,” Shapiro told the DCNF. “We see different approaches to interpretation.”

As for next quarter, Adler said it’s hard to say whether this pattern will hold “because the courts haven’t yet accepted many cases.”

“We don’t know much about next year yet, because the courts haven’t received many cases yet, probably only a third of all cases that will be heard next year,” Adler concluded. “But whether the courts appear to be in agreement or disagree on ideological lines largely depends on the final mix of cases that the courts will eventually hear. will be determined by

“I can’t imagine getting this much attention from the general press,” he said.

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