+1-2%.
That’s an important point. Scotusblog has a lot of statistic over the last 6 year or 49% of the cases were decided by 9-0 votes while only 19% where decided 5-4. The 5-4 were decided by an average of 6 different alignments per term, and the “conservative” won only 42% of the cases.
Robert has been very good (especially in his first few terms) at increasing the number of 9-0 and 8-1 cases.
The Supreme Court is a lot less partisan than people think. I have no doubts they’ll rule keep Trump from talking the country completely over the guard rails. I’m not so sure that Trump will obey their rulings.
Wasn’t there a review that stated that a lot of rulings are a lot more narrow than usual, in an effort to get more people on board.
Just a thank you for linking that editorial. It’s right on the money. Especially as he winds up.
I want to be clear I do not think we are headed to any sort of civil war. Perhaps landing into civil unrest, but more likely, leading to more violent protests. We’ve already seen this with police shootings and marches for causes. It’s going to get worse.
Jesus. We’re fucked.
I mean it’s pretty simple. What is a more interesting news story? Unanimous decision or 5-4 split with intense dissent papers?
I’m seeing this scenario as plausible now: Election shenanigans in 2020- polls clearly show Trump losing, but suspicious results in certain states give him another minority win. California and other blue states refuse to accept the result, install a “legitimate” US government in CA. Trump asks military to quell the rebellion, they either refuse to get involved or don’t agree which side is the legitimate government. Fighting breaks out within the many states.
Well, if we do have to suffer the unspeakable carnage of another civil war, I hope at least we get cool beards to go along with it.
My purpose in life is becoming clearer.
I can appreciate this perspective from someone who sits in a moderate position and where those statistics may provide comfort. Of course, the issue here being not every decision carries equal weight in the lives of the electorate. Play the extremes game, if SCOTUS declares “The Purge” to be kosher, their decision in a federal lands case really doesn’t amount to a hill of beans (of course, such a ridiculous thing would have had to become a law in the first place).
By that token, MANY conservatives are hoping to get a targeted nominee in place to help push back previous decisions they don’t agree with.
It would be much better to install the counter-government in NYC, just to annoy Trump. …
Just need to get them boys some muskets.
and @Strollen
NYT from 2014:
The very question of partisan voting hardly arose until 1937, as dissents on the Supreme Court were infrequent. When the justices did divide, it was seldom along party lines.
There is room for interpretation in such assessments. But of the 71 cases from 1790 to 1937 deemed important by a standard reference work and in which there were at least two dissenting votes, only one broke by party affiliation. “The dividing line in the court was not a party line,” Zechariah Chafee, a law professor at Harvard, wrote in a classic 1941 book.
Nonpartisan voting patterns held true until 2010, with a brief exception in the early 1940s, when a lone Republican appointee voted to the right of eight Democratic appointees. But the general trend was the same. Of the 311 cases listed as important from 1937 to 2010 with at least two dissents, only one of them, in 1985, even arguably broke along party lines.
That adds up to two cases in more than two centuries. By contrast, in just the last three terms, there were five major decisions that were closely divided along partisan lines: the ones on the Voting Rights Act, campaign finance, arbitration, immigration and strip-searches. In the current term, last month’s campaign finance ruling and Monday’s decision on legislative prayer fit the pattern, too.
A look at understanding
That’s mind blowing. I’m amazed that even Democrats thought a third of Democrats were gay.
People are dumb.
Vote deadly traps 2020.
Another new article on the pending civil war some think is coming. Civil War 2.0 terminology is catching on
The problem with the article, is that when people are beating the drums and frothing for violence, it doesn’t just go away. Something has to release that tension, and I don’t think good intentions or a sing along are going to cut it ( a good leader could have).
This is the part that liberally minded people really struggle getting…when people start chanting violence (not just a few fringe people), their almost always ends up being some…and I don’t think our president has the will or capacity to draw down the tension when it does, In fact the opposite! I see his tweets fanning it, and rallies to his base actually fanning the flames MORE, creating more violent civil unrest…
I think the 2/2/5 (or even 3/3/3) partisanship splits are what have been keeping the SCOTUS and the country on course for the past 25 years. Kennedy is at the forefront of this, as he always seems to fall on the side of Constitutional Law rather than partisan preference. Since he became a Justice in 1988 and has been the swing vote on many issues since O’Connor retired in 2006, I think he’s handled the responsibility admirably.
And that is what scares me now. Trump already got to appoint Gorsuch, who so far hasn’t had the opportunity to do much damage, but definitely strikes me as more of a partisan champion (especially in religious issues) than a Constitutional Law defender. Gorsuch was already queued up for Trump early in his Administration, so it was more or less a rubber stamp appointment set up by the GOP. But now, with Kennedy retiring and partisanship more polarized than ever, Trump has the opportunity to appoint someone he thinks would be a populist choice for his base, and the idea of a SCOTUS Justice that ticks all the Trump base boxes scares the shit out of me. Combined with Gorsuch, Thomas and Alito, it gives Conservatives a 4-justice power block that will be nearly impossible to overcome, especially with the reasoned voice of Constitutional Law defender Kennedy gone from the room. If Ginsburg retires or dies before Democrats get control of the White House back, we are well and truly fucked.
Conservative railroad rulings of 5-4 or 6-3 reversing previous decisions about abortion, gay rights, immigration and civil rights could be the spark that ignites much of the populace into civil unrest like we saw in the late 60’s and early 70’s.
The biggest gains for civil rights were not really imposed by the courts, but rather imposed by Congress.
It’s reasonable to expect significant rollbacks in everything that liberals have achieved since the 1960’s. Gay rights, civil rights and abortion may all travel 50 years backward in time, at least in red states.
I think the GOP will overreach badly here. If we have to fight all those fights over again, they’ll find that taking them away from people who are used to them is harder than not granting them in the first place. The response will come in elections – that’s the only useful response – and it will be overwhelming. Assuming, of course, that we have legitimate elections going forward.