In what could be seen as a feat in a single four-year term, former president Donald Trump was able to appoint three justices to the Supreme Court, thanks to a blend of strategic moves by Mitch McConnell and the untimely passing of RBG. However, contrary to Trump’s actions which suggest that these justices are his appointees and therefore might become his personal supporters on the bench, it turns out this has not been the case. Recent data now backs up the independence of these appointees.
Professors Lee Epstein and Rebecca L. Brown from the University of Southern California Law School recently published their findings after studying SCOTUS voting records from 1937-2021. Their analysis reveals that the Roberts Court is the most “anti-president” court for the mentioned period.
An insight provided by the ABA Journal explains that the average win rate for presidents during the studied period was 65.2%. Trump, however, had the lowest rate among his fellow presidents, achieving victory only 43.5% of the time. Former President Obama followed with a win rate of 52.4%, and President Joe Biden with a win rate of 56.5% through the court’s 2021 term.
According to the analysis, these win rates are based on orally argued cases that implicate presidential power, including cases where either the United States, an executive department or department head, an independent agency, or the president himself were parties.
In more significant cases related to presidential power, which either appeared in a casebook or made the front page of the New York Times after their decisions were announced, Trump performed even worse, with a win record of just 35 percent.
The reasons behind these numbers are currently a topic of discourse. Many note that the Roberts Court is generally opposed to the administrative state, but the specifics remain undefined. In a conversation with The New York Times, the authors of the study shared that they couldn’t pinpoint if the numbers suggest the court’s view on Trump and his administration or if these figures reflect the justices’ growing readiness to check executive authority.
However, the analysis clearly suggests that Trump might face some hurdles in upcoming cases affecting presidential power. This comes as an important reminder for all legal professionals to understand that the independence of SCOTUS appointees from the appointing President can – and indeed does – play out in how the court decides.