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The Discreet Uniter: An Analysis of Elena Kagan’s Role on the Roberts
Court

Gonny Nir46

Eleven years have passed since Elena Kagan’s appointment to the United 
States Supreme Court. Kagan’s confirmation hearings were stifled with 
doubts concerning her lack of experience practicing law and outright 
absence of judicial experience. Nevertheless, past colleagues, mentors, and 
former President Obama all endorsed Kagan’s intellectual prowess and her
particular knack for forging consensus. Since her appointment, doubts 
regarding the Justice’s qualifications to apply justice under the law have 
gradually dissipated. This article aims to identify Kagan’s success through 
examining her role as I) an advocate for democracy, II) her textualist 
pragmatism, and III) her role as an uniter on the Court.   

Pragmatic, narrow-ruling, impartial, consensus-building, and clever. 
These adjectives could all be used to describe Justice Elena Kagan. Kagan is
neither the subject of a Tumblr blog47 nor a dazzling DC star. A poll 
conducted by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni found that only 
44% of Americans could identify Kagan as a Justice of the U.S. Supreme 
Court.48 Evidently, Kagan does not have the recognizability of some of her 
current or former colleagues. Yet this Upper West Side New Yorker has 
revealed herself to be the Supreme Court’s quiet and clever linchpin during 
her tenure thus far. The keys to Kagan’s success largely stem from her 
jurisprudence, authoring style, and unique ability to forge consensus among 
her increasingly divided colleagues.  

Jurisprudence 
Examining Kagan’s jurisprudence is essential to understanding what 

makes her unique from her colleagues.49 Kagan’s jurisprudence is unusual in
that it is grounded in the principles of textualism, a judicial method that 

46 Brandeis University Undergraduate, Class of 2025.
47 See, Collaborative Platform. “Notorious R.B.G.” Tumblr. 2013. 
https://notoriousrbg.tumblr.com/.
48 American Council of Trustees and Alumni. “A Crisis in Civic Education.” GoActa.Org, 
2016. 
https://www.goacta.org/wp-content/uploads/ee/download/A_Crisis_in_Civic_Education.pdf
49 Jurisprudence is a legal theory that a judge utilizes to apply law. 

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https://www.goacta.org/wp-content/uploads/ee/download/A_Crisis_in_Civic_Education.pdf
https://notoriousrbg.tumblr.com/


Brandeis University Law Journal      Fall 2021, Volume 9, Issue 1

interprets laws through the word choice of the legislator.50 Conservative 
judges typically utilize this jurisprudence to conserve the role of the 
Judiciary because it preserves a law’s primary language; traditionally 
resulting in a narrower ruling. Hence, the term ‘conservative’ refers to the 
circumscribed outcomes resulting from textualism, rather than the political 
Conservatism associated with the Republican party. Kagan’s decisions differ
from the traditional use of textualism because she uses the principle to 
interpret a law and then apply the interpretation on a case-by-case basis, 
keeping in mind how the law will serve itself in practice. Kagan’s decisions 
remain pragmatic, moderate, and reasonable by utilizing this kind of judicial
philosophy. Kagan garners intellectual respect from both her conservative 
and liberal-minded colleagues because she’s a grounded textualist who 
doesn’t stray far from the primary words of the legislator, as well as a 
pragmatist whose judgments are sensibly sound and founded in 
applicability. 

In sum, Kagan’s jurisprudence is one of a reasonably-minded judge; 
which allows her to view cases in a uniquely fair fashion; free from strict 
ideological constraints. Professor Kate Shaw of the Cardozo School of Law 
asserted that Kagan’s jurisprudence is one of “a common-law judge who 
takes each case as it comes to her. She’s sort of a judge’s judge.”51 Kagan 
doesn’t reside on either ideological extreme of the judicial spectrum, rather 
closer to the center. This has led her to forge consensus with much more 
ease than some of her more ideologically hard-minded colleagues. 

Understanding Kagan’s jurisprudence allows for a holistic 
understanding of her role on the Roberts Court. The following sections of 
this article will expand on her role as an advocate for democracy and how 
her unique jurisprudence has united both sides of the spectrum in the 
Supreme Court. 

An Activist for Democracy 
Kagan is by no means a “people’s lawyer” in the same breath as 

Justices Ginsburg, T. Marshall, or Brandeis. Yet, court-watchers were 

50 Nelson, Caleb. “What is Textualism?” Virginia Law Review. September 2, 2013.
https://www.virginialawreview.org/articles/what-textualism/.  
51 Talbot, Margaret. “Is the Supreme Court’s Fate in Elena Kagan’s Hands?” The New 
Yorker, November, 11, 2019. sec. Profiles, 
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/11/18/is-the-supreme-courts-fate-in-elena-
kagans-hands  

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https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/11/18/is-the-supreme-courts-fate-in-elena-kagans-hands
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/11/18/is-the-supreme-courts-fate-in-elena-kagans-hands
https://www.virginialawreview.org/articles/what-textualism/


Brandeis University Law Journal      Fall 2021, Volume 9, Issue 1

offered an exclusive glimpse of what invigorates the Justice by virtue of her 
impassioned dissent in Rucho v. Common Cause (2019). Rucho 
encompassed two cases of gerrymandering in North Carolina and Maryland,
where voter suppression materialized due to congressional districts drawn to
appease political outcomes. The majority opinion, authored by Chief Justice 
John Roberts, argued that “a ‘political question’... [is] nonjusticiable—
outside the courts’ competence and therefore beyond the court’s 
jurisdiction.”52 In an uncharacteristically sharp dissent, Kagan disputed that 
the Judiciary is bound by an active pledge to protect the democratic process 
from politically charged harm. Appealing to the very essence of 
representative republican democracy, Kagan wrote: 

 
...partisan gerrymanders here debased and dishonored our 
democracy, turning upside-down the core American idea that all 
governmental power is fundamentally from the people… They 
encouraged a politics of polarization and dysfunction. If left 
unchecked, gerrymanders like the ones here may irreparably damage 
our system of government.53

The dissent, dripping in impassioned similarity to the dissenting style of her 
former colleague Justice Ginsburg, marked one of the few occasions where 
Kagan has so viscerally rejected a majority’s opinion. In her quest for 
plurality, the Justice has not dissented more than four times per term and she
has yet to file more than three concurrences in one term.54 Kagan’s dissents 
convey a heavier significance than some of her other colleagues because so 
few are issued per term. Less is more in terms of Kagan’s dissents; if she 
does dissent, it is due to a fundamentally rudimentary argument that she 
cannot align herself with. In Kagan’s eyes, Rucho v. Common Cause 
overstepped the bindings of the Framers’ vision for this republic. Kagan’s 
tone was that of a gutted Justice, ending her dissent by stating, “with respect 
but deep sadness, I dissent.”55 

52 Rucho v. Common Cause, 588 U.S. 422 (2019).
53 Rucho v. Common Cause, 4.
54 BallotPedia. “Elena Kagan,” Ballotpedia.Org, 2020. https://ballotpedia.org/Elena_Kagan
55 Rucho v. Common Cause, 72.

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Brandeis University Law Journal      Fall 2021, Volume 9, Issue 1

In the Court’s 2020 term, Kagan voted with the majority 75% of the 
time.56 Her colleagues take note when she is among the minority, chiefly 
when she’s the author of the dissent. Kagan favors unanimity as a method of
safeguarding the Court’s legitimacy, often phrasing her majority opinions in 
the narrowest sense, so that a majority of seven justices or more can be 
obtained. Her technique is elementary yet effective: adhere to the text, and 
remain practical. 

An Atypical Textualist Who Directs Novel Alliances 
Statutory interpretation, the term used to describe adhering to the 

primary text of a law, is traditionally considered a core principle among 
conservative judges. Yet Kagan’s use of it has enabled her decisions to 
remain equitable and has even earned a conservative colleague’s vote on 
several occasions. Perhaps the optimal illustration of Kagan’s adherence to 
statutory interpretation is exemplified by her dissent in Yates v. United 
States (2015), which saw the conservative Justices Scalia, Thomas, and 
Kennedy sign on to her opinion.57 Yates centered around a fisherman, John 
L. Yates, and his crew, who ventured into the federal waters off the Gulf of 
Mexico. Once the fishermen returned to the harbor, federal field officer John
Jones measured a group of fish that appeared to be less than the mandated 
twenty inches. Jones issued Yates a citation, informing Yates that the 
National Marine Fisheries Service would confiscate the fish upon the ship’s 
docking. Yates and co. threw the fish overboard and reinstated a larger 
group of fish in direct violation of Jones’ instructions. Through criminal 
law, 18 U. S. C. §1519, Yates was charged with falsification and destruction
of evidence.58 The majority, authored by Justice Ginsburg, argued that Yates
was not in violation of 18 U. S. C. §1519 because Congress intended the 
phrase “tangible object” to pertain solely to objects of “financial-fraud 
mooring… [a tangible object] must be one used to record or preserve 
information.”59 In a witty dissent, Kagan argued the plain language stated: 

the term “tangible object” means the same thing in §1519 as it means
in everyday language—any object capable of being touched… The 
term “tangible object” is broad, but clear… When Congress has not 

56 BallotPedia. “Elena Kagan,” Ballotpedia.Org, 2020. https://ballotpedia.org/Elena_Kagan
57 Yates v. United States, 574 U.S. 528 (2015).
58 Yates v. United States.
59 Yates v. United States, 5.

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Brandeis University Law Journal      Fall 2021, Volume 9, Issue 1

supplied a definition, we generally give a statutory term its ordinary 
meaning.60

The dissent flawlessly captures the universality of Kagan’s textualist 
outlook in combination with her pragmatism. By examining the plain text of
§1519, Kagan implemented a common-law approach to a reasonably candid 
circumstance. The synthesis of textualism and pragmatism, showcased how 
Kagan utilizes the plain meaning of a legislated statute to apply to a case, so 
that the outcome would make more comprehensive sense in practice. 
Kagan’s unique approach to law has united her with Justices of opposing 
jurisprudence more commonly than all of her ideologically-like-minded 
comrades.61 In this dissent, Kagan even seized the accord of two of the 
staunchest originalists, Justices Scalia and Thomas, on the Court at the time.

Kagan’s unique ability to garner consensus by listening to opposing 
views ere to her tenure on the Court is best exemplified by her deanship at 
Harvard Law School. Kagan served as dean of Harvard Law between 2003 
and 2009. Within those years, twenty-four full-time professors were hired, 
an astounding number considering a two-thirds supermajority is required to 
appoint all new faculty members.62 Believing that students should receive a 
holistic education, Kagan sought out conservative-minded professors to add 
to an overwhelmingly liberal faculty. When testifying before the Senate 
Judiciary Committee on her Supreme Court nomination, former Harvard 
Dean turned professor, Robert C. Clark stated, “it says something about the 
ability of the dean to build consensus.”63 Expanding on Kagan’s admiration 
of opposing views, Clark attested, “she wasn’t just ‘political’; she actually 
learned to understand and appreciate many different points of view.”64 

60 Yates v. United States, 29.
61 Bowers, Jeremy, Liptak, Adam, & Willis, Derek. “Which Supreme Court Justices Vote 
Together Most and Least Often.” The New York Times, July 3, 2014, sec. The Upshot. 
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/24/upshot/24up-scotus-agreement-rates.html.
62 “HLS Professors Testified on Behalf of Elena Kagan ‘86,” Harvard Law Today, July 7, 
2010. sec. Faculty Scholarship, https://today.law.harvard.edu/hls-professors-testified-on-
behalf-of-elena-kagan-86/. 
63 “HLS Professors Testified on Behalf of Elena Kagan ‘86,” Harvard Law Today, July 7, 
2010. sec. Faculty Scholarship, https://today.law.harvard.edu/hls-professors-testified-on-
behalf-of-elena-kagan-86/. 
64 “HLS Professors Testified on Behalf of Elena Kagan ‘86,” Harvard Law Today, July 7, 
2010. sec. Faculty Scholarship, https://today.law.harvard.edu/hls-professors-testified-on-
behalf-of-elena-kagan-86/. 

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https://today.law.harvard.edu/hls-professors-testified-on-behalf-of-elena-kagan-86/
https://today.law.harvard.edu/hls-professors-testified-on-behalf-of-elena-kagan-86/
https://today.law.harvard.edu/hls-professors-testified-on-behalf-of-elena-kagan-86/
https://today.law.harvard.edu/hls-professors-testified-on-behalf-of-elena-kagan-86/
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/24/upshot/24up-scotus-agreement-rates.html


Brandeis University Law Journal      Fall 2021, Volume 9, Issue 1

Kagan’s sui generis65 capability to seek the crux of the opposing 
side’s argument is essential to understanding her role on the Roberts Court. 
Kagan does not simply search for an argument’s elementary claims. Rather, 
she wishes to comprehend the idea at its core. In his testimony before the 
Senate Judicial Committee during Kagan’s confirmation hearings, Harvard 
Professor Jack Goldsmith revealed, “Kagan sought my views and expressed 
a genuine interest in my arguments and ideas. I never got the sense that she 
wanted to know what I thought as a conservative. For Kagan, it was the idea
and the argument that mattered.”66 Perhaps the greatest testament to Kagan’s
thirst for intellectual difference comes from her late colleague, Justice 
Scalia, who confessed to CNN’s David Axelrod that he hoped President 
Obama would nominate Kagan for a seat on the High Bench. Scalia 
divulged, “I hope he sends us someone smart… I hope he sends us Elena 
Kagan.”67 Scalia unquestionably knew Kagan’s jurisprudence would differ 
axiomatically from his. Yet, Scalia appreciated not only Kagan’s intellectual
capacity but her willingness to hear the other side for the sake of 
diversifying her views.   

In addition to peer confession, Kagan’s Martin-Quinn (MQ) score 
can discern another testament to her ideological overlap with her 
conservative colleagues. A Martin-Quinn score is a dynamic metric 
developed by a duo of political scientists from the University of Michigan 
that measures a Justices’ ideological lean by assessing their voting record. 
By plotting a given Justice on a continuum with conservative on the positive
range and liberal on the negative range, each vote a Justice casts shifts the 
Justice’s overall placement on the continuum which has no minimum or 
maximum values. The objective of the MQ model is to quantitatively 
measure a Justice’s ideological lean, with the hopes of gauging how 
Justice’s align and morph throughout their tenure.68 Kagan’s MQ score 

65 Original, or unique. 
66 “HLS Professors Testified on Behalf of Elena Kagan ‘86,” Harvard Law Today, July 7, 
2010. sec. Faculty Scholarship, https://today.law.harvard.edu/hls-professors-testified-on-
behalf-of-elena-kagan-86/. 
67 Axelrod, David. “A Surprising Request from Justice Scalia,” CNN, March 9, 2016, sec. 
Opinion, https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/14/opinions/david-axelrod-surprise-request-from-
justice-scalia/index.html. 
68 Farnsworth, Ward. “The Use and Limits of Martin-Quinn Scores to Assess Supreme 
Court Justices with Special Attention to the Problem of Ideological Drift.”Northwestern 
University Law Review Colloquy. Nov. 2007: 12, 

38

https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/14/opinions/david-axelrod-surprise-request-from-justice-scalia/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/14/opinions/david-axelrod-surprise-request-from-justice-scalia/index.html
https://today.law.harvard.edu/hls-professors-testified-on-behalf-of-elena-kagan-86/
https://today.law.harvard.edu/hls-professors-testified-on-behalf-of-elena-kagan-86/


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stands at -1.69, this reasonably dictates why Justice Brett Kavanaugh (0.51) 
and Chief Justice John Roberts (0.22) have frequently voted alongside 
Kagan in cases.69

Unanimity, She will Pursue 
If the Court is to be continually seen as a statutory institution, 

widespread consensus whenever and wherever possible is crucial. Kagan’s 
textualist pragmatism, which tends to appease both sides of the bench to 
forge a more robust majority, is well exemplified by Loughrin v. United 
States (2014). Lourghin consisted of a bank-fraud scheme insinuated by the 
defendant, Kevin Loughrin, in which he stole mailed-out checks from 
individuals, bought items at Target, and returned those items in exchange for
cash. The question at hand regarded whether a federal prosecutor ought to 
prove a defendant’s intent to defraud a financial institution under 18 U. S. C 
§11344. 

At the outset of his trial, Loughrin confessed the sole intent to 
defraud Target Inc., not the banking institutions from which the checks were
derived. The second clause of  §11344 states “whoever knowingly executes, 
or attempts to execute, a scheme or artifice… to obtain any of the moneys, 
funds, credits, assets, securities, or other property owned by, or under the 
custody or control of, a financial institution, by means of false or fraudulent 
pretenses, representations, or promises’” be fined no more than $1,000,000 
or 30 years in prison (or both).70 Loughrin argued that if the Court were to 
interpret the ‘by means of’ language to include all petty frauds involving 
checks “all frauds affected by receipt of a check would become federal 
crimes.”71 A federalism faux pas, as states are customarily tasked with 
prosecuting “bad check” cases. Yet, Kagan argued that “it is not enough that
a fraudster scheme to obtain money from a bank and that he make a false 
statement… The criminal must acquire (or attempt to acquire) bank property
‘by means of’ the misrepresentation.”72 Essentially ruling that bank fraud by 
means of a check can only be prosecuted federally if the criminal’s 

https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1110&context=nulr_online 
69 Michigan Law School. “Martin-Quinn Scores,” M|LSA, 2019, 
https://mqscores.lsa.umich.edu/measures.php 
70 Loughrin v. United States, 573 U.S. 316 (2014)
71 Loughrin v. United States, 18.
72 Loughrin v. United States, 14.

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https://mqscores.lsa.umich.edu/measures.php
https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1110&context=nulr_online
https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1110&context=nulr_online


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deception naturally induces a bank to part with property or money in its 
possession.73 

The central crux of Loughrin’s claim rested on the assertion that by 
stretching the language of 18 U. S. C §11344(2), every bank fraud case 
committed by means of a check would be subject to federal prosecution. 
However, Kagan with legislative history as an advocate for her argument, 
argued: “nothing in the [second] clause additionally demands that a 
defendant have a specific intent to deceive a bank… imposing that the 
requirement would prevent §11344(2) from applying to a host of cases 
falling within clear terms.”74 Kagan clarified that 18 U. S. C §11344’s first 
clause “to defraud a financial institution,” was written with the intent to 
separate it from the language of the second clause so that a broader range of 
cases could be decided under 18 U. S. C §11344(1) and (2). This opinion 
chiefly represents how Kagan’s textual pragmaticism was able to gain a 
broad consensus, as the Court unanimously ruled 9-0. Each conservative 
justice signed on to her opinion because of the clear and direct interpretation
of 18 U. S. C §11344. Yet, by interpreting it in such a practical manner, 
Kagan was able to garner the consensus of her liberal colleagues as well. It’s
not guaranteed that had the second clause of 18 U. S. C §11344 been 
interpreted alternatively, it would have secured a unanimous vote. 

Justice Scalia, for example, merely concurred in the ruling because 
he was unconvinced by the Government’s ‘natural inducement’ test which 
the majority accepted. Scalia expressed that the Court heard “scant argument
(nothing but the Government’s bare-bones assertion) in favor of the ‘by 
means of’ textual limitation, and no adversary presentation whatever 
opposing it.”75 Scalia believed that interpreting §11344(2)’s ‘by means of” 
language, should follow the dictionary’s definition, of “[a]method, or course
of action, by the employment of which [bank property was] attained,” so 
that 18 U. S. C §11344 would innately involve criminally inducing a bank 
away from its money or property.76  Scalia remained unconvinced by the 
Government’s ‘natural inducement,’ test, thus expressing that the Court 
should have left deciding the textual limitations of the ‘by means of” test for
another case. Yet, it should be noted that Justice Thomas was the sole signed

73 Loughrin v. United States, 18.
74 Loughrin v. United States, 7.
75 Loughrin v. United States, 18.
76 Loughrin v. United States, 19.

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Brandeis University Law Journal      Fall 2021, Volume 9, Issue 1

justice to Scalia’s opinion. Yet Kagan’s received eight signatures, it suffices 
to show that Kagan’s pragmatic interpretation of 18 U. S. C §11344 
permitted that unanimity to materialize. 

In an era of severe political polarity infiltrating the halls of the 
Legislature and the office of the Executive, Americans are becoming 
increasingly pessimistic regarding the federal government’s ability to 
govern. Thus, the Judiciary must take it upon itself to be a model of what the
Framer’s would identify as “good government,” or what modern generations
refer to as “productive.” Suppose the Court consistently turned out 5-4 or 6-
3 decisions. In that case, the American people would see the Judiciary as 
just another political branch of government that cannot put its differences 
aside to solve palpable issues. A number of justices have professed their 
concern for the Court’s legitimacy. Yet, none have expressed the concern 
more directly and frequently than Kagan. In a lecture given at Georgetown 
Law, Kagan professed that “during these polarized times…  [the justices 
should] look and see if there’s something smaller we can agree on, some 
greater consensus we can achieve,” adding that unanimity was crucial to 
maintaining the Court’s legitimacy.77 Kagan comprehends the colossal 
weight currently placed on the Court’s shoulders. Thus it’s not a stretch of 
the imagination to conclude that she has the Court’s legacy in mind while 
she’s tenured on the high bench. 

Conclusion    
In concluding this analysis, it is of great importance to view Kagan 

as a unique player on the Roberts Court. Due to her unparalleled 
jurisprudence, she likely possesses the greatest ability to sway justices from 
one side of an opinion to the other. Kagan’s narrow-rulings allow her to feel 
more comfortable siding with her decisions as they don’t necessarily change
the Court’s precedent dramatically. Court-watchers mustn’t mistake Kagan’s
fairness for disinterest, she shows a great deal of passion for protecting the 
voting rights of citizens and has zero tolerance for political gerrymanders, 
regardless of which side of the political aisle they benefit. Fairness, in every 
sense of the word, perfectly describes Kagan as a judge. She’s shown 

77 “What Justice Kagan Told ABA About Decision-Making, Politics, Pro Bono, and 
More.” American Bar 
Association. November 2018. 
https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/publications/youraba/2018/november-2018/
what-justice-kagan-told-the-aba-about-decision-making--politics-/ 

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https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/publications/youraba/2018/november-2018/what-justice-kagan-told-the-aba-about-decision-making--politics-/
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distinguished humbleness and admiration for the position she currently 
holds; her tenure, though only in its early stages, has proven to be one of 
vital importance to this unique era of the Supreme Court.

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Works Cited 
Collaborative Platform. “Notorious R.B.G.” Tumblr. 2013. 
https://notoriousrbg.tumblr.com/

Nelson, Caleb. “What is Textualism?” Virginia Law Review. September. 2, 
2013. https://www.virginialawreview.org/articles/what-textualism/. 

American Council of Trustees and Alumni.“A Crisis in Civic Education,” 
GoActa.Org, 2016.    
https://www.goacta.org/wp-content/uploads/ee/download/A_Cris_in_Civic_
Education.pdf 

Talbot, Margaret. “Is the Supreme Court’s Fate in Elena Kagan’s Hands?” 
The New Yorker, November, 11, 2019. sec. Profiles, 
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/11/18/is-the-supreme-courts-
fate-in-elena-kagans-hands 

Ballotpedia. “Elena Kagan,” Ballotpedia.Org, 2020. https://ballotpedia.org/
Elena_Kagan 

Bowers, Jeremy, Liptak, Adam, & Willis, Derek. “Which Supreme Court 
Justices Vote Together Most and Least Often.” The New York Times, July 
3, 2014, sec. The Upshot. 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/24/upshot/24up-
scotus-agreement-rates.html. 

“HLS Professors Testified on Behalf of Elena Kagan ‘86,” Harvard Law 
Today, July 7, 2010. sec. Faculty Scholarship, https://today.law.harvard.edu/
hls-professors-testified-on-behalf-of-elena-kagan-86/ 

Axelrod, David. “A Surprising Request from Justice Scalia,” CNN, March 9,
2016, sec. Opinion, https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/14/opinions/david-
axelrod-surprise-request-from-justice-scalia/index.html 

Farnsworth, Ward. “The Use and Limits of Martin-Quinn Scores to Assess 
Supreme Court Justices with Special Attention to the Problem of Ideological
Drift.” Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy. Nov. 2007: 12, 

43

https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/14/opinions/david-axelrod-surprise-request-from-justice-scalia/index.html
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https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1110&context=nulr_online 
Michigan Law School. “Martin-Quinn Scores,” M|LSA, 2019, 
https://mqscores.lsa.umich.edu/measures.php 

“What Justice Kagan Told ABA About Decision-Making, Politics, Pro 
Bono, and More.” American Bar Association. November 2018. 
https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/publications/youraba/2018/
november-2018/what-justice-kagan-told-the-aba-about-decision-making--
politics-/ 

Cases Cited
Rucho v. Common Cause, 588 U.S. 422 (2019)
Yates v. United States, 574 U.S. 528 (2015)
Loughrin v. United States, 573 U.S. 316 (2014)

44

https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/publications/youraba/2018/november-2018/what-justice-kagan-told-the-aba-about-decision-making--politics-/
https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/publications/youraba/2018/november-2018/what-justice-kagan-told-the-aba-about-decision-making--politics-/
https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/publications/youraba/2018/november-2018/what-justice-kagan-told-the-aba-about-decision-making--politics-/
https://mqscores.lsa.umich.edu/measures.php
https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1110&context=nulr_online
https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1110&context=nulr_online



