Supreme Court news: Liberal justices' 'dissent rate' lowest since Roberts joined in 2005

[Valin]

The Washington Examiner

Kaelan Deese, Supreme Court Reporter
June 03, 2023

With 27 opinions left for the Supreme Court to hand down before the end of the month, the rate of dissents from the three-member liberal minority bloc is standing at its lowest point in the past 25 years.

As of June 2, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson have only issued five dissenting opinions, or responses disagreeing with the majority, out of the 29 argued and signed decisions. That's roughly a 5% dissent rate and represents the lowest rate since Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court in 2005, according to Adam Feldman, founder of the widely cited blog Empirical SCOTUS.

While Feldman said instances like the current low rate of dissents or the initially slow release of opinions made this term "unpredictable in some ways," he contends that the Roberts court is "backloading" the polarizing decisions such as cases surrounding affirmative action, election law disputes, and a fight between religious freedoms and anti-discrimination laws.

(Snip)