The Supreme Court's Term Appeared To Be Cautious. The Numbers Tell A Different Story

[Nevilledog]

https://www.npr.org/2021/07/09/1013951873/the-supreme-courts-term-appeared-to-be-cautious-the-numbers-tell-a-different-sto

Despite a cautious approach to controversy for most of the Supreme Court term, statistics for the whole term tell a different story. By the numbers, the justices swerved to the right, even by the standards of the traditionally conservative Roberts court.

A picture of this rightward shift is captured by statistics compiled through NPR number crunching and the SCOTUSblog Stat Pack.

More cases were decided along ideological lines with conservative results than in years past. Since John Roberts became chief justice in 2005, the court has on average decided just under 10% of its cases by polarized 5-4 votes. This term, that percentage has gone up, with the court's new conservative supermajority winning 15% of cases by a polarized vote of 6-3, plus an additional 4% decided by a conservative 5-4 majority.

Where the liberals lost

Despite some analysis suggesting that this was a year of unusual unanimity, the facts don't bear this out. True, the justices reached unanimity more than they have in the past three years, but they did so less than the average for the full 15 years of the Roberts court. And many of this term's unanimous opinions were on staid statutory questions that would put even some lawyers to sleep.

*snip*

[FBaggins]

1. I don't think the two things are contradictory

"Cautious" is a relative thing. Obviously... replacing Ginsburg with Barrett was going to change some results.

But some of those 8-1/9-0 narrow rulings could easily have been 5-4/6-3 blockbuster precedent-setting rulings. That's cautious.

[lagomorph777]

2. Expand SCROTUS NOW. This is an emergency; they are stripping voting rights.

Roberts needs to be remembered as the asshole who finally made it obvious that SCROTUS is broken.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

3. Control of the SCOTUS was on the ballot in 2017 and now Roe v. Wade is on the chopping block

This new SCOTUS is very very conservative and I expect to see Roe overturn next term

[UTUSN]

4. Yea, not taken in by that sprinkling of "uanimous" berdictz