For Supreme Court, unanimous doesn’t mean unity

Robert Barnes

Tuesday, July 01, 2014 | 7:54PM
Supreme Court experts have been looking for the right word to describe the term’s record number of agree-not-to-disagree unanimous decisions: Faux-nimity? Un-unanimous?

The number of rulings without dissent skyrocketed to rates not seen since the 1940s, and the court’s percentage of closely divided decisions dropped to a modern low.

Such cases can mask deeper conflicts, and those were on display in the term’s finale this week. The decisions announced Monday showed that stark divisions — conservative opposed to liberal; Republican appointees on one side, Democratic ones on the other; even women vs. men — exist on the court beneath a frequent veneer of 9-to-0 comity.

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