Statistical data

At the end of Justice Amy Connie Barrett’s first term, the conservative majority of the six Supreme Court justices was struggling to cope with his newly acquired control. The split among its members is complicating the conservative revolution, some predicted after Barrett’s confirmation in October last year. However, because the Republican-appointed justices were not expected to retire soon, and there will be a sensational case file on abortion and gun rights conflicts during the next term, the outline of the court shifting to the right has just emerged.

These findings come from the analysis of our new and improved annual statistical package. Released today, it contains extensive statistics on 58 oral arguments and 67 case decisions during the 2020-21 term of the court. (For a complete explanation of our data set, See our introduction.) The statistical package is Full available here, And the various sections at the bottom of this article.

This time, 43% of the cases were passed unanimously. This number is slightly lower than the 46% average of the past ten years, but a few percentage points higher than the past three semesters. In contrast, only 12% of the cases (eight cases in total) were decided at a score of 5-4, a sharp drop from the average of 20% since John Roberts became chief justice in 2005.

But the number of 5-4 decisions is no longer an accurate measure of court polarization, because Republican-appointed justices occupy six of the nine seats for the first time during Roberts’ tenure. There are 10 decisions this semester, or 15% of the cases, which are completely ideologically polarized 6-3 (or 5-3, in one case, Barrett has avoided).

Given the controversy surrounding Barrett’s confirmation of the replacement of the late Justice Ruth Bud Ginsberg shortly before the 2020 election, one can ask how often her vote is decisive. If Ginsberg (or a liberal successor appointed by President Joe Biden) replaces Barrett in court, 10 ideologically polarized cases are likely to achieve the same result, just by a 5-4 vote. Against, instead of 6 votes. -3. But in the other four cases, if the Democratic Party-appointed person sat on Barrett’s seat and voted with other liberal justices, Barrett’s presence did indeed seem to have an impact on the expected results. All four cases were decided 5 to 4, with Barrett in the majority, and a conservative justice joined three dissenting liberal justices.One Involving the constitutionality of the designated administrative patent judge, Other Tighten the requirements for consumers to file class actions, And two Lifting restrictions on religious worship in New York with California during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In close proximity, the six conservative judges usually get what they want. But they do not vote uniformly in every situation, and occasionally sharp differences arise between them. We can understand this by looking at the frequency of the majority vote of the justices this semester.

With Barrett’s appearance in court, Justice Brett Kavanaugh quickly replaced Roberts as the new ideological intermediary of the court.This Prevail Narrate At the end of the last term, Justice Ginsberg was still sitting on the bench. The court divided equally between 5-4 according to the ideological line. Roberts appeared in the majority at 97% and was in close decision. Obviously controlled the results.During this tenure, Kavanaugh found himself in the lead on the more conservative bench 97% of the time, a metric that shows Stable from the midpoint of the semester.

This semester, Kavanaugh has the majority in an impressive 95% of split cases (no 9-0 or 8-0 decision under any circumstances), while Barrett is second with 84%, behind For her main two-tenths. Since 2012, only another judge has achieved a 95% score in divisional cases: Roberts, the previous term.

Examining the split case, we can see to what extent the three judges appointed by the Democratic president were excluded from the majority by the new composition of the court. This semester, they won the lowest since 2012 (Judges Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor) and the second lowest (Judge Stephen Breyer) in most divisional cases this semester. ) Odds.The three people only disagree in the main ruling this semester To curb the use of the Voting Rights Act to challenge voting restrictions is racial discrimination, Allow the court to impose life imprisonment on young people without first finding them “permanently incurable”, with Restrict deportation in order to Unauthorized person in the country,and many more.

In particular, Sotomayor raised objections to more than half of the divisions for the third time in eight years. She has written four of the eight personal objections published this semester, and she often expresses personal consent.As Linda Greenhouse is famous for the New York TimesWhen Sotomayor believed that most people ignored or distorted the factual history and background behind her usual textualist views, she took the role of writing alone to criticize the court. Only Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s prolific personal consent author, wrote more opinions this semester than Sotomayor.

However, the six conservative judges enjoy the highest majority participation rights in all cases and divisional cases, but this does not mean that they always reach consensus. Of the two most watched decisions during the term, Justices Thomas and Samuel Alito (the lowest majority of the six conservatives) and Justice Neil Gorsuch criticized the court for not doing enough.

For the third time in eight years, the court Rejected the challenge to the “Affordable Care Act”. Three liberal judges, Roberts, Kavanaugh and Barrett unconditionally joined Breyer’s technical opinion to dismiss the lawsuit. Alito and Gorsuch held different opinions, reprimanding most people for maintaining the “judicial creativity” of the law again. Thomas wrote a separate letter to “praise” the dissent, but still joined the narrow stance of the majority.

The religious freedom movement caused even greater divisions.By piecing together one Limited award By granting Catholic foster care services a highly fact-dependent exemption from the Philadelphia policy and requiring foster care institutions to cooperate with same-sex couples, Roberts managed to avoid the result of overturning long-standing precedents. Employment Division v. Smith, It believes that religious observers are generally not entitled to immunity from general laws. In the 77-page harsh criticism that Thomas and Gorsuch joined, Alito criticized the majority for choosing a politically convenient ruling instead of ultimately denying this “fundamentally wrong” decision.

These disputes aside, the court avoided many hot issues during Barrett’s first term. But the two are ready to make potentially blockbuster decisions in June next year, while others are waiting to test the extent to which the new conservative majority is willing to push the court to the right.

This fall, the judges will hear Major abortion case in Mississippi Intended to challenge Rowe v. Wade And its The first important case on the Second Amendment For more than ten years.During the 2019-20 term, Roberts refused to be Significantly restrict abortion opportunities, There are signs that he is hesitant Expand gun rightsHowever, if Barrett joins Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Cavano to vote for the next term, Roberts’ vote may not have an impact.

The judge may also decide whether to take High-profile challenge to Harvard’s affirmative action policy Brought by Asian American students, they temporarily postponed this choice by asking the federal government to weigh in this spring.The conservative group of the court will have Another opportunity to expand religious rights -If only incrementally-in new cases involving public funding for religious education.

Whether Barrett will actually push the court to the right on these landmark issues is still an open question. It will not stay open for long.

Click on Check out our complete 2020-21 statistics package here, Or view the sections below. Without the help of James Romoser, Angie Gou and Mitchell Jagodinski, this Stat Pack would not be possible.