According to Feldman and Truscott, there were only five cases with ideological 6-3 splits, compared to 14 last year. There were also more unanimous decisions this term, although it wasn’t an unusually high level of unanimity.

So it may turn out that last year was something of an anomaly for the conservative majority, which isn’t fully on the same page about how to address high-profile cases. But that doesn’t mean the court is moderating, either. All five of the ideologically split decisions had sweeping implications for American life — from the closely watched decision striking down affirmative action in higher education as a violation of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment to the less-followed but still important ruling that put significant limits on the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate wetland pollution. Those decisions show that when the conservative majority is united, they’re continuing to pursue long-held Republican goals, like cutting back the power of administrative agencies and expanding exemptions to anti-discrimination laws.

And the fact that they’re unwilling to give conservatives a win in every case may say as much about what advocates are asking for as it does about the court’s ideological bent. The two big surprises this term — the ruling involving the Constitution’s elections clause and the decision involving the Voting Rights Act — were both cases that previous courts probably wouldn’t have agreed to hear at all.

[It’s an interesting analysis, but it starts off from an assumption that the cases and decisions were entirely political. There’s a better explanation for the anomalies that are discussed here: those were based on laws passed by Congress. The other decisions were policies implemented by executive-branch agencies that either had no explicit statutory foundation, or — in the case of SFFA v Harvard — explicitly contradicted the language of the 14th Amendment. The Court in this term gave significant deference to Congress and statutory constructs, but has taken a much different approach to agency actions and jurisdictional issues. I mentioned this earlier in the week in another comment on Josh Blackman’s assessment of Roberts at Reason, and I’m surprised that people continue to miss this pattern. — Ed]