TAKE BACK THE COURT: SCOTUS DOCKET SKEWS CONSERVATIVE, STUDY SHOWS

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (February 9, 2022) — The Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority is using its docket-setting power to stack the deck in favor of conservative outcomes according to a new study released by Take Back the Court. Of cases with clear ideological lines chosen by the Court, more than 75% had the potential to move the law in a conservative direction while less than a quarter could have shifted law in a liberal direction.

“Cases are not assigned to the Court; the Court itself chooses the cases it decides. The choices the Court makes in constructing its own docket are essential to understanding the ideological leaning of the Court,” the report says. The analysis of the 53 Supreme Court cases from the 2020 Supreme Court term broke cases down into ideological and non-ideological cases. It then examined the ideological potential of those cases with a clear political bent, finding that the docket skewed overwhelmingly to the political right.

“Not only has the Supreme Court issued disastrous rulings that erode our democracy, but the current hyper-partisan majority has created a playing field on which only conservatives can win,” said Take Back the Court Foundation Executive Director Sarah Lipton-Lubet. “It’s disingenuous to look only at case outcomes when their origination on the Court’s docket is controlled by the very justices who will hear these cases. This study clearly refutes arguments that the Court is not radicalized, further demonstrating the Court is an active participant in the right-wing’s attempt to impose its radical agenda on America even when it loses elections. Expanding the Court is the only way to restore balance and integrity to the judiciary.”

Over the last year alone, the stolen conservative Court majority has gutted the Voting Rights Act, effectively outlawed abortion in Texas, blocked President Biden’s eviction moratorium, reinstated Donald Trump’s cruel and inhumane ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, curtailed workers’ rights to organize, and invited arguments to overturn Roe and obliterate state and local gun safety regulations.

Despite those rulings, some analysts have cherry-picked rulings to argue that the Court is not pursuing an activist right-wing agenda. Commentators have, for example, cast the Court in a “3-3-3” ideological split, despite the clear and illegitimate 6-3 Republican majority. The new study, however, reinforces that the Court is not only issuing right-leaning rulings, but that the conservative justices are rigging the Court’s docket to create more opportunities for right-wing outcomes than for liberal outcomes.

A full copy of the study can be found on the Take Back the Court website.

Take Back the Court raises awareness about the urgent need to expand the number of seats on the Supreme Court to address the theft of the court by Senator Mitch McConnell during the Obama Administration. Without adding seats, Congress will not be able to restore the right to vote, ensure reproductive freedom, protect workers, halt our climate emergency, or pass new legislation. Court expansion, which can be accomplished without a constitutional amendment, is the only reform that enables the un-rigging of the system and the restoration of democracy. Learn more: https://www.takebackthecourt.today/