The 3-3-2-1 court?
In an earlier article I looked at all of the merits decisions since the Supreme Court’s newest member, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined the court four years ago, to see…
Who is Justice Barrett?
Back in 2024, Justice Amy Coney Barrett ended the Supreme Court’s term with two dissents that complicated the usual descriptions of her as a textbook conservative. In Ohio v. EPA,…
Beyond the swing justice: majority makers, dissent bridges, and coalition drift on the Supreme Court
Justice Amy Coney Barrett recently resisted a label that has followed several members of the current Supreme Court. Asked whether her occasional breaks with the court’s conservative majority meant she…
How predictable is the Supreme Court from oral argument?
Some Supreme Court arguments seem relatively easy to read. After the court reheard Louisiana v. Callais, SCOTUSblog reported that the court appeared “ready to curtail major provision of the Voting…
The Supreme Court and the opinion-assignment guessing game
As we saw this term, by late May the Supreme Court begins releasing the bulk of its merits decisions, and with it a familiar guessing game starts among court watchers.…
Who is the Supreme Court’s most “ideological” justice? And does that question even make sense?
We often describe the court through a familiar shorthand: three Republican-appointed conservatives (Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch) at the far right of the court; three Democratic-appointed liberals…
Breaking down the birthright-citizenship decision
Trump v. Barbara, the birthright-citizenship case that dominated headlines this term, was emblematic of how the court can be predictable in closely followed cases while still leaving room for surprises.…
How Supreme Court precedents die before they are overruled
When the Supreme Court says a precedent has been “abandoned,” the real work has already been done. Read more Nine days in June That was the story of Lemon v.…
The two Roberts courts
The current court is often described as composed of six Republican-appointed conservatives and three Democratic-appointed liberals. And that shorthand explains many of the court’s most visible decisions. But it also…
The Roberts court’s record on the First Amendment
The Roberts court is often treated as especially protective of the First Amendment. It is true that the court has reshaped free speech law across such areas as campaign finance,…