Who’s Writing the Opinion(s) in the Race-Conscious Admissions Cases?
With Justice Kennedy’s opinion today in KSR, it is now likely and unsurprising, but by no means certain, that the Chief Justice is writing the lead opinion(s) in the Seattle and Louisville equal protection cases. If, by some small chance, Justice Alito is voting with the more liberal wing of the Court, then there’s a chance that Justice Stevens would have assigned the opinion(s) to him. Justice Souter also has not yet written from the November/December sitting; but I think it’s unlikely that he was assigned the opinion(s) in the school cases.
There is also a chance that the two school cases could come out different ways — in particular, that the Louisville plan could be upheld while the Seattle plan is invalidated. If so, there’s still a chance that another Justice — probably Justice Kennedy — would write one of the two opinions.
If the Chief Justice is writing in KSR I think this would be the case where we’re really going to see if the Chief Justice’s promise to write narrow rulings that the whole Court can embrace will be a true one. If this is a 5-4 ruling, with the Chief and Justice Stevens controlling the majority and minority respectively, it will be interesting to see if the Chief Justice writes a decision to try to peel off a Justice or two from the minority.
I predict that he will not.
Comment by Jeffrey Kiok — April 30, 2007 @ 11:33 am