Supreme Court Voting Behavior: 2001 Term

This Study, the sixteenth in a series, tabulates and analyzes the voting behavior of the United States Supreme Court during the 2001 Term. The analysis is designed to determine whether individual Justices and the Court as a whole are voting more conservatively, more liberally, or about the same when compared with past Terms. This Study attempts to remove subjectivity by applying a consistent classification scheme to ten categories of cases over time. This Term\u27s data strongly suggests that the present Court stands in an uneasy ideological balance. The Court\u27s voting behavior during the 2001 Term reverses the modest liberal trend of last Term with virtually across-the-board conservative movement. Polarization and voting instability are increasing and the ideological division on the Court is apparent