This week marked the end of what was supposed to be a new, 6–3 conservative Supreme Court. Despite the last day’s high-profile cases that broke down on such “partisan” lines—to my mind correctly resolving issues of election regulation and donor disclosure—the term was marked largely by both surprising unanimity and never-before-seen splits. There just turned out not to be too many ideological-looking decisions this term, though of course that’s partly because the more pragmatic justices worked hard to forge grand compromises.

More savvy observers are calling it the 3–3‑3 Court, with Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan on the left, Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch on the right, and Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett in the middle (or center-right). But I’m not convinced of that, at least not yet, even if that’s a correct general description of how the justices align relative to each other. And recall that the biggest conservative “betrayal” of the post-Scalia Court was Justice Gorsuch’s authorship last year of Bostock v. Clayton County, which read federal employment law as already protecting against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. (But that’s only if a conservative considers Roberts not worth counting on at all any more.)

Perhaps most notably, Justice Barrett shocked doomsayers (but nobody else) by ruling according to her own brand of jurisprudence more than a particular political agenda. She joined with her Democratic-appointed colleagues when the law, as she saw it, demanded it, including in the 7–2 majority that rejected the latest (and last) existential challenge to Obamacare. Those senators, activists, and pundits who acted during her confirmation process last October as if she were nominated to take health care away from millions were either misinformed or disingenuous.

And she wasn’t alone in defying expectations. When you look at the numbers, the justices were all over the place—except Justice Kavanaugh, who was in the majority in all but two cases (97%) and is the definitive man in the middle. This mish-mash is the ultimate vindication for Justice Breyer, who at a Harvard lecture in April repeated, as he often has, that the Court is a legal rather than political institution. The Court’s politics-avoiding performance this term tamped down calls for court-packing and other radical changes.

And speaking of Breyer, court-watchers—and a great many voters—wait with bated breath for word of whether this was his last term on the bench. (As of this writing, it wasn’t.) The oldest justice (turning 83 next month) is well aware of the Democrats’ razor-thin margin in the Senate, but it could be that pressure from progressive activists marginally pushed him to stay for another year ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. Although Democrats fear a repeat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s refusal to retire when their party last held both the White House and Senate, maybe they ought to be more concerned about the health of Senators Dianne Feinstein (88) and Patrick Leahy (81).

Cato filed in 14 cases that the Supreme Court heard this term, coming out with a 10–3 record (not counting the Arizona election case, in which we supported neither side but urged the Court to provide clarity for future litigation). That’s much improved from the previous term’s 6–4 clip, and still beats our biggest rival, the U.S. government, which by my count went 19–13. (It’s an apples‐​and‐​oranges comparison, I know, because the government typically appears as a party, not simply amicus, and always participates in oral argument.) Cato also had a sort-of win in Pakdel v. San Francisco, in which the Supreme Court issued a per curiam (“by the Court,” without a designated author) opinion without oral argument that rejected the lower court’s property right analysis.

Here’s the full breakdown, in the order the opinions arrived:

Winning side (10): Torres v. Madrid; CIC Services v. IRS; Nestle v. Doe; Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski; Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid; United States v. Arthrex; Carr v. Saul; Caniglia v. Strom; Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L.; Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta.

Losing side (3): Carney v. Adams; California v. Texas (we took a nuanced position regarding the individual plaintiffs’ standing); Greer v. United States (we filed in the companion case of Gary v. United States).

No side (1): Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee

And in our 13 “sided” cases, the breakdown of justice votes was interesting, at least to me: we won 10 votes from Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, 9 from Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito and Barrett, 8 votes from Justice Sotomayor, and 7 votes from Justices Thomas, Breyer, and Kagan. Given that it’s at least possible that Justice Barrett would’ve been on our side in one case that was argued before she joined the Court, one could argue that the Trump-appointed justices collectively are most closely aligned to us—though of course this finding is nowhere near statistically significant.

Next term already has some exciting cases. In N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Corlett, the Court will consider whether the Second Amendment requires the granting of concealed-carry permits for self-defense purposes. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, the Court takes up the contentious question of whether all pre-viability abortion restrictions are unconstitutional (my prediction: the Roe v. Wade right is under no threat, but Planned Parenthood v. Casey’s inscrutable “undue burden” standard isn’t long for this world). And in Carson v. Makin, the Court will evaluate the constitutionality of Maine’s school-choice program, which prohibits the use of student aid to attend religious schools. It could be that the Court also adds the challenge to Harvard’s use of racial preferences in admissions—although asking for the views of the solicitor general (gee, I wonder what the Biden administration will argue) likely pushes the case to the following term.

I’ll have more to say in future commentary, but if you’d like to learn about all these cases and trends from the perspective of Cato‐​friendly scholars and lawyers, make a note to watch our 20th Annual Constitution Day Symposium, which will be held September 17 (Constitution Day). That’s also when we’ll be releasing the latest volume of the Cato Supreme Court Review. And for background on the politics behind all of this, you can read my book, Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court.

With that, we can bid adieu to the Supreme Court until October—and hopefully this summer, the justices, and the rest of us, will actually be going somewhere.