Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the relatively quiet new term is just "coincidence," the Washington Examiner reported. After three months with no activity, the court decided on one case and dismissed another Monday.
Typically, the justices hear cases beginning in October and will have several rulings by the end of June. That pattern changed this year, and some are wondering what it means.
However, Kavanaugh insisted there wasn't much to the court's slowdown other than coincidence. "I am confident they’ll all be out by the end of June," the justice said of opinions while speaking Monday at the University of Notre Dame's law school.
"So I don’t think anyone needs to worry. … It’s just a coincidence of which mix of cases were in October and November," Kavanaugh added.
There were some changes to the court last year, including the newly-appointed leftist Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, whom President Joe Biden named to the court. This has likely led to a shift in dynamics, though Kavanaugh wouldn't let on to that.
Instead, he remained diplomatic about his fellow justices. "My experience with the court - in my four and a half years and at this moment - is there are great relations among all nine justices, both personally and professionally," Kavanaugh said.
"We only get tough cases. We disagree on some of those," he said, appearing to downplay the stark ideological differences that exist among the justices.
"I think that’s more nuanced than sometimes is portrayed," Kavanaugh added. Even with Brown's appointment, the court is still 6-3 with right-leaning justices.
Kavanaugh also touched on a controversy surrounding the law school ratings from U.S. News & World Report. A boycott was touched off after several institutions, including Yale Law School, rejected the rankings because they didn't take issues like diversity into account.
“I think those ratings are very problematic," Kavanaugh said. "They’re based on things, from what I understand, that are very amorphous, very subjective, very word-of-mouth factors that don’t correlate well with education you’re actually receiving," he added.
One major subject Kavanaugh was not asked about was last year's leak of the draft opinion of the case that would overturn Roe v. Wade. He referred to it generally when noting it was a "difficult year at the court."
It was difficult indeed after Politico released a draft of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision in May, more than a month before the official ruling was set to occur, Fox News reported. The results of the leak were immediate and damaging as protesters showed up at the home of the justices.
To date, the source of the leak has yet to be identified. "The investigation has determined that it is unlikely that the Court's information technology systems were improperly accessed by a person outside the Court," a report from the Marshal of the Court stated. "After examining the Court's computer devices, networks, printers, and available call and text logs, investigators have found no forensic evidence who disclosed the draft opinion."
A quiet court isn't necessarily a worrisome thing in and of itself. However, the political climate of the nation is such that any decision could be incendiary to radical leftists, and there's no doubt that has some impact on the proceedings after all.
