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This week, we re tracking the Supreme Court s unanimity
rate in civil cases, matched against the evolving party alignment
of the Justices. Last time, we reviewed the data for the 1990s.
Today, we re reviewing the data for the years 2001 through
2010.
With Democrat Thomas Kilbride having replaced James Heiple in
the final days of 2000, the Court was at five Democrats and two
Republicans from 2001 through the end of 2004. For these four
years, the overall unanimity rate was 71.14% – ten points
higher than it was in the nineties. The unanimity rate in 2001 was