Why Kagan v. Kavanaugh Matters

Mark Joseph Stern has offered us an interesting prophesy in Slate. His thesis, a bit hard to extract, is that Kagan has become pissed at Kavanaugh for hardening to the right. And that the weird barbs she has been throwing at him in two cases this term, in Borden and Edwards, are evidence not of […]

Kagan v. Kavanaugh on Ideology Scores???

There is an interesting footnote in one of Kagan’s recent dissents which should be of interest to judicial politics scholars. Let me set this up for you. The Court in Ramos v. Louisiana held that the Constitution requires unanimous jury verdicts. It was a huge case for criminal procedural rights. The vote was 6-3, with […]

Coppins on Kavanaugh

It’s a lengthy read, but here are the key takes on judicial ideology: “Even as he climbed the ladder of Washington’s conservative legal establishment, Kavanaugh remained staunchly nonpartisan in his schmoozing. “He was the kind of conservative you could go out to dinner with,” says Ruth Marcus, a liberal columnist at The Washington Post who knew Kavanaugh […]