This week, we’ve following up our discussion of the academic literature on panel effects with a review of the Court’s unanimity rates compared against the evolving party alignment of the Court.

For 1990 and part of 1991, the party alignment of the Court was five Republicans and two Democrats.  For those two years, the Court’s unanimity rate was 53.03%.  The rate was two-thirds in 1990 and one-third in 1991.

The party alignment of the Court from late 1991 through 1999 was six Republican appointees and one Democratic.  For the entire period, the Court had a unanimity rate of 46.55%.  The Court’s unanimity rate was between forty and fifty percent for the years 1992 through 1995.  IT rose to 54.84% in 1996, but fell to 36% in 1997.  It rose back to 46.3% in 1998 and 53.85% in 1999.

Join us back here next time as we continue our review of the Court’s data for the years 2000 through 2009.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Don Graham (no changes).