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Originally Posted by VonDondu The fact that many Supreme Court cases have been decided on a 5-4 decision (Sandra Day O'Connor was considered the swing vote) reinforces the idea that there is a conservative side and a liberal side. With Roberts and Alito now on the Court, I'm sure there will be many, many 6-3 decisions with only Stephens, Ginsberg, and Breyer on the "liberal" side. Stephens was appointed by Gerald Ford. They are the only ones who are decidedly pro-choice on the issue of abortion, for example. All of the remaining Justices were appointed by Reagan, Bush I, or Bush II. Kennedy and Souter (the moderate-conservatives) tend to side with the Court's conservatives, which now include Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito. It's clearly a situation where we have Clinton/Ford appointees vs. Reagan/Bush I/Bush II appointees |
In regards to Kennedy and Souter though both were expected to be conservative judges when first nominated (appointed by Reagan and Bush senior respectively), and are for the most part (moderate-conservative like you said), but they often didn't side with Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas on many issues thus negating the solid 6 justice conservative bloc that was expected. I only bring this up to show that nothing is ever entirely 'clear' with the supreme court. A 6 justice bloc is expected here too, but we could just as easily see echoes of the past.