If Roberts isn’t with them, the court’s most conservative member, Justice Clarence Thomas, has the power to assign the majority opinion or write it himself. And if any five agree, they can go galloping off anywhere they choose. Sometimes he can curb them, but not always sometimes he is delighted to head in the same direction. Some of his most conservative justices are champing at the bit. Roberts Jr., who occupies what passes for this court’s center, holds the reins but is no longer firmly in control of his horses. The October 2021 term is the first with six conservatives in place from Day One the newest, Amy Coney Barrett, was not confirmed until several weeks into the court’s previous term, and the first year for any new justice tends to be a time of settling in. That is the reality - exhilarating for conservatives, chilling for liberals - as the court, with a membership that has not been this conservative since the 1930s, embarks on what could be its most consequential term in decades. What can we expect from the Supreme Court on abortion? Ask Ruth Marcus and Henry Olsen. The most they can manage is damage control, and that only rarely. They craft dissents that may serve as rebukes for the ages but do little to achieve change in the present. Meantime, a court with a six-justice majority is one in which the justices on the other side of the ideological spectrum are effectively consigned to a perpetual minority. Such a court doesn’t need to trim its sails, hedge its language, or abide by legal niceties if it seems more convenient to dispense with them.Ī conservative justice wary of providing a fifth vote for a controversial position can take comfort in the thought that now there are six there is strength in that number. On the current court, each conservative justice enjoys the prospect of being able to corral four colleagues, if not all five, in support of his or her beliefs, point of view or pet projects, whether that is outlawing affirmative action, ending constitutional protection for abortion, exalting religious liberty over all other rights or restraining the power of government agencies.Ī six-justice majority is emboldened rather than hesitant so, too, are the conservative advocates who appear before it.

The overall impact is far greater than the single-digit difference suggests. of Hirsch WestheimerĪ six-justice majority is a different animal.Ī six-justice majority, such as the one now firmly in control, is the judicial equivalent of the monarchy’s “heir and a spare.” The pathways to victory are enlarged. Is Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton a Criminal?.Meet the Justices of the Supreme Court of Texas.

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Data 2022: Random Assignments SDTX (Jan-Jun).Meet the Judges of the Southern District of Texas (Houston).Houston Lawyer Roy Smith Obtained Medical Services for Personal Injury Clients.

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