In all of the wailing, gnashing of teeth, foaming at the mouth, and rending of garments following the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and the subsequent drawing of political battle lines, it seems to me that an incorrect view of the Supreme Court is being promulgated and accepted unquestioningly—the essential ideological nature of the present Court.
In the 2015 (present) Supreme Court term of the 18 cases decided since October, 11 were decided unanimously or with only a single dissent (Sotomayor). In the 2014 Supreme Court term of the 74 cases decided, 36 were decided unanimously or with only a single dissent (1 Sotomayor, 2 Thomas, 1 Alito).
Many if not most of these unanimous or near unanimous cases went against the Obama Administration. The Obama Administration is outstanding among presidential administrations in the large number of Supreme Court cases it has lost 9-0.
In the 2014 term an additional 6 cases were decided with just two dissents: 2 with Alito and Thomas dissenting, 1 with Sotomayor and Kennedy dissenting, 1 with Thomas and Ginsburg dissenting, 1 with Scalia and Thomas dissenting, and 1 with Roberts and Scalia dissenting.
That doesn’t sound to me like a Court sharply divided along ideological lines but a Court with a significant amount of agreement. I would further submit that quite a few of the 5-4 cases were cases that should never have reached the Supreme Court to begin with but are failures of Congress.
