Supreme Court Voting Behavior: 1999 Term

This Study, the fourteenth in a series, tabulates and analyzes the voting behavior of the United States Supreme Court during the 1999 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 as compared with past Terms. This Term\u27s survey suggests a reversal of the Court\u27s liberal trend over the past two Terms, with conservative movement in six of the ten categories. Specifically, the Court\u27s support of statutory civil rights claims plummeted to an all time low, while the Court exhibited a dramatic conservative shift in cases decided by one vote. Furthermore, the Study\u27s second most reliable category for indicating liberal/conservative trends, Civil/ State Party, showed solid conservative movement in all types of decisions. Yet, this apparent conservative movement is counterbalanced somewhat by the fact that the Study\u27s most reliable category for indicating conservative/liberal trends, Criminal/Federal Party, demonstrated some liberal movement. A more in-depth analysis for each category is set forth in Part IV-B of this Study