The last decade in the United States Supreme Court

Everyone seems to be making lists about what occurred in the last decade, so what about the Supreme Court over the last 10 years? What were the most important rulings and what do they tell us about the court? Obviously, there is great subjectivity in picking the 10 most significant decisions, yet I also believe that there would be a consensus among scholars for most of the cases on this list.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) held that corporations have the right to spend unlimited money from their treasuries to get candidates elected or defeated. The decision has dramatically changed elections, especially those with less press coverage where the spending of money on advertising can make an enormous difference.

AT & T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion (2011) ruled that arbitration clauses in routine consumer contracts must be enforced. In it, and other cases such as American Express v. Italian Colors Restaurant (2013) and Epic Systems v. Lewis (2017), the court broadly interpreted the requirement for enforcing arbitration agreements under the Federal Arbitration Act. The result is that arbitration clauses are increasingly insisted on by employers, doctors, and merchants and keep injured individuals from suing in court.

National Federation of Independent Businesses v. Sebelius (2012) upheld the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The court concluded that Congress constitutionally could require individuals to purchase health insurance or pay a tax penalty. The result was to uphold a law that provides health insurance coverage to an additional 40 million Americans.

Shelby County v. Holder (2013) declared unconstitutional a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that required jurisdictions with a history of race discrimination in voting to get preclearance from the attorney general or a federal court before significantly changing its election system. States quickly reinstated requirements for voting that previously had been rejected. The result is to make it much harder to prevent discriminatory voting requirements.

Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) is the landmark decision holding that laws preventing same-sex marriage deny equal protection to gays and lesbians and violate the fundamental right to marry. As a result, marriage equality now exists everywhere in the United States.

Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt (2016) struck down a Texas law that required a doctor performing an abortion to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles and that there be surgical quality facilities wherever abortions are performed. The court said that the law would have closed many facilities where abortions are performed without doing anything to protect women's health. The decision was a basis for invalidating many similar targeted restrictions on abortions providers. A Louisiana law imposing an identical requirement for admitting privileges is now pending before the Supreme Court.

Fisher v. University of Texas, Austin (2016) upheld the University of Texas affirmative action program. The court reaffirmed that colleges and universities have a compelling interest in having a diverse student body and that race can be used as one factor in admissions decisions.

Carpenter v. United States (2018) concluded that it violated the Fourth Amendment for police to obtain cellular records from a phone company that show where a person's phone was located at every minute over a long period of time. This is a crucial decision applying the Fourth Amendment to the technology of the 21st century.

Trump v. Hawaii (2018) upheld President Donald Trump's travel ban, which prevented immigration from designated countries despite repeated declarations by Trump, as a candidate and as president, that he intended it to be a limit on immigration by Muslims. The court expressed the need for great deference to the president in matters of immigration.

Rucho v. Common Cause (2019) held that federal courts cannot hear challenges to partisan gerrymandering, the practice where the political party controlling the legislature draws election districts to maximize safe seats for that party. It means that in the redistricting that will occur after the 2020 census, legislatures can engage in gerrymandering with the knowledge that there cannot be challenges in federal courts.

What can be learned from this list of cases? All were decided by one vote, mostly 5-4, though one was 5-3 and one was 4-3. Interestingly, the outcomes were evenly split between those coming out on the side favored by conservatives and that favored by liberals. In the cases where the liberal position prevailed, Anthony Kennedy was in the majority in three of the five and John Roberts was in the majority in the other two.

With Kennedy having been replaced by Brett Kavanaugh, it is uncertain whether there still will be five votes for abortion rights, affirmative action, and gay and lesbian rights. In each of those cases, Roberts dissented. John Roberts now has been Chief Justice longer than Earl Warren served in that position, but the Roberts court with five Republican appointed justices is just in its second term.

It is also striking from this list of cases as to how much the court's decisions determine the nature of our political process and how much they affect all of us, often in the most intimate and important aspects of our lives. 