The Political Orphanage Your Friends Are Wrong About the Supreme Court: Sarah Isgur
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Apr 22, 2026 
Sarah Isgur, senior editor at SCOTUSblog and author of Last Branch Standing, breaks down how the Supreme Court really works. She describes three voting blocs, explains how precedent and institutionalism shape decisions, and outlines reforms to protect court legitimacy. Short, clear takes on judicial history, voting patterns, and practical fixes.
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Three Blocs Replace Simple Left Right Split
- The Court now shows three stable blocs rather than a simple left-right split: liberal trio, conservative "honey badger" trio, and a pragmatic center trio that often forms majorities.
- Isgur used singular value decomposition on majority/dissent data to reveal these "lunch table" groupings (Kagan/Jackson/Sotomayor; Thomas/Alito/Gorsuch; Roberts/Kavanaugh/Barrett).
Two Axes Explain Voting Patterns
- The Court's two analytical axes are judicial ideology (X) and institutionalism or approach to collegiality/stare decisis (Y).
- This explains why similarly conservative appointees like Gorsuch and Kavanaugh sometimes disagree: one prioritizes precedent and institutional stability, the other prioritizes individual textualist outcomes.
Ramos Illustrates Precedent Versus Correctness Fight
- Sarah recounts Ramos v. Louisiana where all justices agreed Apodaca was wrong but split 5-4 over whether to overturn it due to stare decisis concerns.
- This illustrates how disagreement about precedent, not just ideology, produces sharp 5-4 rulings.
