Justice Kennedy (File Photo)

By Joan Biskupic
Compiled by staff data specialist Jo Craven from Supreme Court opinions
Friday, July 3, 1998; Page A17

As the Supreme Court finished its 1997-98 term recently, the voting patterns and alignments of the justices deepened.

Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony M. Kennedy, appointees of Ronald Reagan in 1981 and 1988, continued to define the center and speak for the court on key issues. In the narrowly decided cases, Kennedy was most often a pivotal vote. He was in the majority more than any other justice, 93 percent of the time. O'Connor was in the majority 89 percent of the time.

Justice O'Connor (File Photo)

In the 15 cases decided by a 5 to 4 split, Kennedy was in the majority in all but three. During the last week of the term, for example, he voted with the four more conservative justices that a school district can be held financially responsible for a teacher's sexual harassment of a student only if it knew about the misconduct and did nothing. Three days later, Kennedy voted with the four more liberal members to find that people with the AIDS virus are covered by federal disabilities law from the moment of infection.

Although the court is often characterized by its internal divisions, on some of their biggest rulings the justices spoke with strong majorities or unanimity. In the three cases involving sexual harassment in the workplace – as opposed to in schools – the justices in a pair of 7 to 2 votes increased employers' liability for sexual harassment, and, by a unanimous vote, said federal job discrimination law applies when the harasser and victim are the same sex. Also, the justices said the National Endowment for the Arts could consider standards of decency in deciding which artworks to fund, and allowed state and federal governments to ban polygraph evidence in court, both by 8 to 1 votes.

All told, the justices issued 91 signed rulings, up from 80 in the last term and 75 in the term before that. Still, the justices are handing down far fewer than the 140 opinions of a decade ago.

The Voices of the Court

Anthony M. Kennedy was in the majority most, 93 percent of the time. Sandra Day O'Connor was second, 89 percent.

Close Calls

Of the 15 cases decided by a 5 to 4 vote, these five justices made up the most common voting alignment:

Rehnquist O'Connor Kennedy

Scalia Thomas

Alignments

Inclined to the left, David H. Souter, Stephen G. Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg voted together 62 percent of the time in non-unanimous cases.

Inclined to the right, Anthony M. Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor and William H. Rehnquist voted together 64 percent of the time when the court wasn't unanimous.

Alone again, John Paul Stevens, who has a mostly liberal voting record, preserved his reputation as the great dissenter and did so more than any other justice, in about one-half of non-unanimous cases.

Consistently conservative, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia voted together 82 percent of the time in non-unanimous cases.

NOTE: Rulings often are the result of splintered votes and conflicting rationales. Vote tallies used in this study reflect justices' positions on the judgment in a case and do not necessarily reflect a total agreement on judicial rationale.