The First Voting Statistics
Every year, we publish a variety of statistics on the Term. Our preliminary set of voting statistics (subject to the effect of two decisions tomorrow and double checking generally) is now available here. Last Term’s numbers for comparison are available here.
I did some preliminary and rough analysis of the effect of the new Justices. I averaged the Justices’ voting relationships in the 2001 and 2005 Terms. Then I compared them with this Term. The results were relatively striking.
Chief Justice Roberts accomplished something you wouldn’t think possible in a sometimes deeply divided court, at least for someone who is not the “swing vote”: he was closer to every other Justice than his predecessor. For three of the more liberal Justices, the change was dramatic: Stevens, +15%; Souter, +17%; Ginsburg, +17%. For more conservative members of the Court, the change tended to be smaller (though for Scalia it was 12%).
Don’t get confused into thinking that Roberts gravitated towards the more liberal Justices. Rehnquist’s relationship with the other conservatives was already very strong; Roberts had little to do to establish a high degree of affinity.
Instead, the data shows that Roberts – consciously or not, and more likely the former – built bridges throughout the Court.
The numbers for Justice Alito were striking as well, in a way that is encouraging for conservatives, discouraging for progressives. (Note that the sample size for Justice Alito is smaller – only 36 cases – and therefore potentially misleading, particularly because he was handed three cases with 4-4 ties that were originally argued when O’Connor was on the Court, without any of the many unanimous cases from that earlier period.)
Compared with Justice O’Connor, Alito’s affinity with all the conservatives grew substantially: Scalia, +13%; Kennedy, +15%; Thomas, +14%; and (though the comparison is inexact) Roberts (compared to O’Connor’s affinity with Rehnquist) +12%. By contrast, the affinity with the liberals was lower, sometimes substantially: Stevens, -15%; Souter, -5%; Ginsburg, -4%; Breyer, -14%.
In case you want to look at the actual numbers, they are available here.
One of the unknowables is how the change of personnel affects cert. votes. Theoretically, a more conservative court will vote less often to grant cert. to questionable “conservative” decisions and be more likely to take a harder look at more questionable “liberal” decisions.
Also, it will be interesting to see if Roberts desire to increase the cert. load pans out. That may result in more “error correction” cases, which would tend to increase unanimity.
Comment by federalist — June 28, 2006 @ 9:40 pm
Thanks…
1) I’d like a link back to a discussion of the meanings of the figures. I assume that there is some discussion of these in an earlier posting.
2) I’d also like to have a tab delimited file of all the cases and how the justices voted. Then one can go in, rate the cases as, say Pro National Government or Pro State, etc. and determine whether the decisions or a specific judge voted consistantly.
Thanks…
Comment by mike liveright — June 29, 2006 @ 4:42 am
While the initial stats are interesting, the pool for Roberts and Alito are relatively small. Considering that there were many unanimous decisions this term, two key decisions forthcoming and Roberts having more say in the caseload next term, next year the figures could be quite different.
Comment by Vocal Observer — June 29, 2006 @ 10:04 am