, Columnist
The Supreme Court Will Always Split 5-4
About a third of U.S. Supreme Court decisions are always 5-4 -- no matter how ideologically divided the court is. Here's why.
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Everyone knows that under Chief Justice John Roberts, the U.S. Supreme Court often divides 5-4 -- an even split between liberals and conservatives, with Justice Anthony Kennedy providing the swing vote. But here's a puzzle. Over recent decades, and under many different chief justices, the share of 5-4 splits in the Court's docket has been fairly constant -- on average, in the vicinity of 20 percent.
Is the Court always split between liberals and conservatives, or is there some other explanation?