The Supreme Court’s term is over, with 75 cases having been argued and decided. It’s safe to say that the most significant ones were those decided this week, on the politically fraught subjects of affirmative action, the Voting Rights Act and gay marriage. I’m extremely proud that Cato was on the winning side of each of these issues. In fact, we were the only organization to file briefs supporting the challengers on each one (Fisher v. UT-Austin, Shelby County v. Holder, Windsor v. United States & Perry v. Hollingsworth).
That says a lot. Not that the Supreme Court always takes its guidance from us — would that it were so! — but that we’re consistent in embracing the Constitution’s structural and rights-based protections for individual freedom and self-governance. It’s gratifying that the Supreme Court saw it our way in those “big” cases, even if Fisher was an extremely narrow decision and the others were all 5–4.
But that’s not all. After finishing my commentary on Windsor and Perry last night, I was curious to see how we did overall, beyond the high-profile cases. It turns out that we went 15–3 on the year. That is, looking purely at briefs we filed on the merits — you can see our record on briefs supporting cert petitions here — the Supreme Court ruled our way 15 times and against us three (and I can assure you that we don’t pick cases strategically to inflate our winning percentage. (I don’t count Perry in either column, by the way. While we ended up with a favorable result, Prop 8 struck down, the Court decided the case on standing grounds, incorrectly in my view).
Again, I’m not claiming that the Court was heavily influenced by briefs with Cato’s (or my) name on them — there’s just no way to know, and even briefs that are cited may be less influential than others — but many, many of these decisions track our thinking. That’s also gratifying, regardless of how the justices reached their conclusions.
For the record, here’s the list of cases in which we filed this term (in order of argument):
Winning side (15): Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, Arkansas Game & Fish Commission v. United States, Fisher v. UT-Austin, Florida v. Jardines, Bailey v. United States, Comcast v. Behrend, The Standard Fire Insurance Co. v. Knowles, Gabelli v. SEC, Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District, PPL Corp. v. IRS, Shelby County v. Holder, Horne v. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Windsor v. United States, AID v. AOSI, Sekhar v. United States
Losing side (3): City of Arlington v. FCC, Salinas v. Texas, United States v. Kebodeaux
My colleague Walter Olson has already compared our record to the greatest sports teams of all time, as well as what I consider to be the most dominate year by a baseball player, Sandy Koufax in 1963 (who went 25–5 and was the regular season and World Series MVP). I just wish that The Man With the Golden Arm could have had as long a career as Cato’s amicus brief program.
