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What happened to the 6-3 Supreme Court? The next 2 weeks will tell us.
In small cases (and a few big ones), the liberal bloc is winning more often than the conservative majority. But the most divisive decisions have yet to be announced.
By JAMES ROMOSER
06/20/2023 11:35 AM EDT
Updated: 06/20/2023 01:10 PM EDT
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/20/supreme-court-polarization-expectations-00102663
The Supreme Court is entering the home stretch of a term that — at least so far — has confounded the narrative of a court fully captured by the right: Ideologically polarized 6-3 votes have temporarily disappeared, and the liberal justices are getting their way more often than the court’s staunchest conservatives.
In the 39 decisions in argued cases that the court has handed down to date, the three justices most often dissatisfied with the results have been the three most conservative justices. Justice Samuel Alito has dissented in 10 cases this term, Clarence Thomas has dissented in nine and Neil Gorsuch has dissented in seven, according to a POLITICO analysis of Supreme Court votes.
All the other justices have three or fewer dissents. And the justice who has been in the majority most often is a shocker: Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court’s most liberal member who in prior terms has consistently been the court’s most frequent dissenter.
All of this could change, however, over the next two weeks as the court churns out decisions in some of the term’s biggest and most politically divisive cases.
“I would hesitate to make any conclusions about the Supreme Court’s term before it finishes issuing its opinions, especially considering which cases haven’t been decided yet,” said Nikolas Bowie, a law professor at Harvard.
Before departing for its customary summer recess, the court is expected to announce whether colleges can continue to use affirmative action, whether President Joe Biden has the authority to cancel student debt and whether certain businesses have a right to refuse services for same-sex weddings. Also pending are important cases about Biden’s immigration policy and the ability of state legislatures to run elections with little judicial oversight.
Some or all of those cases may soon become the newest milestones for the court’s vaunted 6-3 conservative supermajority. Bowie noted that, just two years ago, some pundits described the court as a minimalist body fractured “3-3-3” — a view that did not age well when, last June, the conservative majority jolted the law to the right on abortion, guns, religion and climate change.
Liberals have spent months bracing for this June to be the sequel.
In the meantime, though, the court’s three-member liberal bloc has notched surprising victories in a number of small cases and a few big ones, too – much to the chagrin of the court’s conservative flank.
“This term so far reinforces the point that not all cases — not even all important cases — split the justices along right-left lines,” said Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University. “In addition, the six-justice conservative majority has internal disagreements on some key issues, as cases like Milligan and Haaland demonstrate.”
Somin was referring to decisions earlier this month in Allen v. Milligan, a stunning 5-4 decision in which Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the three liberals in favor of Black voters suing Alabama under the Voting Rights Act, and Haaland v. Brackeen, a 7-2 decision in which the court upheld a federal law that gives preference to Native American families in the adoption of Native children.
Both decisions drew sharp dissents from Thomas and Alito.
On the other side, there is Sotomayor, the senior member of the liberal bloc that also includes Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. At this point last term, Sotomayor had already dissented 16 times. But this term, she has formally dissented in only one case, an arcane dispute about regulations of foreign bank accounts. (In a second, more significant case, involving protections for wetlands, she and the other liberals concurred in the court’s bottom-line result, but their concurrence is more naturally read as a functional dissent because they disagreed sharply with the legal rule that the majority adopted.)
Much of the liberals’ incremental success has come in the dustier corners of the court’s docket. The three liberals have managed to align with varying conservative justices to build ideologically scrambled majorities in technical cases involving overtime pay, nursing home abuses, the federal prosecution of a Turkish bank and a dispute over a roadway easement.
Perhaps most surprising, the alliance-shifting means that the court has yet to hand down any decisions this term along completely polarized lines – that is, with the six Republican-appointed justices all in the majority and the three Democratic-appointed justices all in dissent. Last term, there were 14 such polarized cases.
The new ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday found that 52 percent say they agree with the decision to upend affirmative action, with 32 percent disapproving. Thirteen percent say they don’t know.
When it comes to the high court’s decision to strike down President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, 45 say they agree. However, 40 percent say they disagree with the decision, with 14 percent saying they do not know.
saxitoxin wrote:The new ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday found that 52 percent say they agree with the decision to upend affirmative action, with 32 percent disapproving. Thirteen percent say they don’t know.
When it comes to the high court’s decision to strike down President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, 45 say they agree. However, 40 percent say they disagree with the decision, with 14 percent saying they do not know.
Out of touch 91 year old Biden rejects what most Americans want and vows to circumvent SCOTUS.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
jusplay4fun wrote:Why should a truck driver or laborer pay for the loans of a doctor or lawyer?
bigtoughralf wrote:jusplay4fun wrote:Why should a truck driver or laborer pay for the loans of a doctor or lawyer?
Right, why should anyone pay any taxes at all.
jusplay4fun wrote:bigtoughralf wrote:jusplay4fun wrote:Why should a truck driver or laborer pay for the loans of a doctor or lawyer?
Right, why should anyone pay any taxes at all.
We are not talking about taxes here, but rather Loan FORGIVENESS.
bigtoughralf wrote:jusplay4fun wrote:bigtoughralf wrote:jusplay4fun wrote:Why should a truck driver or laborer pay for the loans of a doctor or lawyer?
Right, why should anyone pay any taxes at all.
We are not talking about taxes here, but rather Loan FORGIVENESS.
How is a truck driver paying for student loan forgiveness, if not through their taxes?
bigtoughralf wrote:jusplay4fun wrote:Why should a truck driver or laborer pay for the loans of a doctor or lawyer?
Right, why should anyone pay any taxes at all.
jusplay4fun wrote:bigtoughralf wrote:jusplay4fun wrote:bigtoughralf wrote:jusplay4fun wrote:Why should a truck driver or laborer pay for the loans of a doctor or lawyer?
Right, why should anyone pay any taxes at all.
We are not talking about taxes here, but rather Loan FORGIVENESS.
How is a truck driver paying for student loan forgiveness, if not through their taxes?
deficit spending
jimboston wrote:Ralph why pick on JP4… why not address my point?
A bit harder?
GaryDenton wrote:You can agree that Harvard was blatantly prejudicial against Asians and disagree with this decision.
GaryDenton wrote:
BTW, Thomas was also received the benefit of affirmative action…
Yale Law School had a 10 percent minority goal the year in which Thomas applied to and was accepted into the program:
Judge Clarence Thomas, who came to prominence as a fierce black critic of racial preference programs, was admitted to Yale Law School under an explicit affirmative action plan with the goal of having blacks and other minority members make up about 10 percent of the entering class, university officials said.
Under the program, which was adopted in 1971, the year Judge Thomas applied, blacks and some Hispanic applicants were evaluated differently from whites, the officials said. Nonetheless, they were not admitted unless they met standards devised to predict they could succeed at the highly competitive school.
"We did adopt an affirmative action program and it was pretty clearly stated," said Prof. Abraham S. Goldstein, who was dean of the Law School from 1970 to 1975.
bigtoughralf wrote:jimboston wrote:Ralph why pick on JP4… why not address my point?
A bit harder?
You weren't really making your own point, you were just cheerleading jp4's 'more gruel please' performance.
Unless either of you are saying you think the government should give 0 funding to universities then 'muh taxes' isn't relevant.
One might disagree with a specific government wealth distribution program; or maybe just the size of the wealth distribution program being discussed. This does NOT mean you automatically disagree with all taxation all government spending, or even all wealth distribution programs.
Details matter.
jimboston wrote:bigtoughralf wrote:jimboston wrote:Ralph why pick on JP4… why not address my point?
A bit harder?
You weren't really making your own point, you were just cheerleading jp4's 'more gruel please' performance.
Unless either of you are saying you think the government should give 0 funding to universities then 'muh taxes' isn't relevant.
I was defending th position he was unable to defend.
He was opposed to the Biden “Loan Forgiveness” policy as am I.
His argument, after stating the opposition, was non-existent and or incoherent.
You brought up the issue of taxation.
I simply stated that…One might disagree with a specific government wealth distribution program; or maybe just the size of the wealth distribution program being discussed. This does NOT mean you automatically disagree with all taxation all government spending, or even all wealth distribution programs.
Details matter.
Just because I oppose a specific tax or a specific program DOES NOT mean I oppose all taxes and all gov’t programs.
Tax dollars going to University is a multi-faceted issue and does not directly relate to either the Affirmative Action case nor the Loan Forgiveness case.
I’m happy to discuss and defend my positions on any of those three issues.
You however take comments and then extrapolate them and exaggerate them to extremes not intended or implied… extremes that make no sense. You do this only to TRY to denigrate people here you disagree with.
It’s dishonest… a dishonest way of discussing or debating.
As dumb as most of JP4’s comments are… at least he’s trying to be honest for the most part.
You however take comments and then extrapolate them and exaggerate them to extremes not intended or implied… extremes that make no sense. You do this only to TRY to denigrate people here you disagree with.
jimboston wrote:You brought up the issue of taxation.
Tax dollars going to University is a multi-faceted issue and does not directly relate to either the Affirmative Action case nor the Loan Forgiveness case.
bigtoughralf wrote:jimboston wrote:You brought up the issue of taxation.
jp brought it up.
He's since realised he's wrong and started ducking the point, which is probably why you think it's only me talking about tax.
bigtoughralf wrote:Tax dollars going to University is a multi-faceted issue and does not directly relate to either the Affirmative Action case nor the Loan Forgiveness case.
You agree with me then.
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