While the Court’s on break

 

In the lazy days of August, Court watchers are trying to figure out the justices, especially Kennedy.

Commentators have said this before about the current complexion of the Roberts Supreme Court: On a bench with a bloc of four right-leaning justices and a bloc of four left-leaning justices, Justice Kennedy’s vote is the most crucial…

In the Court’s 24 5-4 decisions, Justice Kennedy was in the majority in every one. In the 72 cases decided this term, he was in the majority in 70 of them. According to [Thomas] Goldstein, there hasn’t been a term in about 40 years in which that a justice dissented two or fewer times. “It really gives you a sense that Justice Kennedy’s vote is more centrally important than any other justice in the history, the modern history, of the Supreme Court.”

Given his writing in the partial-birth abortion ban, Kennedy’s the focus of everyone’s attention on both sides of the political/social spectrum. Especially on issues of abortion, with the chance to correct some former wayward court decisions.

As for the ‘conservative bloc’, Goldstein his this analysis on justices Scalia and Thomas on that WSJ law blog:

Doctrinally, I think [they] have the more sweeping vision, the more aggressive vision. They have been in the wilderness, if you will, for a long time, and now that they perceive that they have the votes to correct what they view as serious missteps in the law, they would like to push ahead, but Justice Alito and John Roberts are much more modest in their ambitions in that respect.

While all these presidential candidates continue to argue about what they would do in security, economics, health care, immigration, homosexuals in marriage and the military, even what role religion plays for them….keep in mind the question of what they would do when a seat becomes vacant on the Supreme Court. That’s where the lasting fabric of society is woven.