Cato Went 10-1 at Supreme Court This Term

By Ilya Shapiro

And so another term has come and gone at the marble palace at One First Street NE. Like last year, Cato did swimmingly, compiling a 10–1 record in cases where we filed an amicus brief. Notably, we again vastly outperformed the solicitor general’s office, which went 11–9 on the year. Perhaps the government would be better served following our lead on constitutional interpretation, advocating positions that reinforce our founding document’s role in securing and protecting individual liberty.

Cato was also the only group in the country to file on the winning side of this term’s three highest-profile 5-4 cases: McCutcheon v. FEC (campaign finance), Harris v. Quinn (workers’ rights), and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (HHS mandate). This again matches our performance last year, when we were the only ones to file on the winning side of Fisher v. UT-Austin (racial preferences), Shelby County v. Holder (voting rights), and United States v. Windsor (DOMA). There’s an obvious reason why it’s become a “best practice” among elite Supreme Court advocates to solicit an amicus brief from Cato; while our denial rate is lower than the Supreme Court’s, it’s been growing steadily given increasing requests without a commensurate growth in manpower.

For the record, here’s a record of cases in which we filed this term (in order of argument):

Winning side (10): McCutcheon v. FEC; Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action; Bond v. United States; Noel Canning v. NLRB; Brandt v. United States; McCullen v. Coakley; Harris v. Quinn; Burwell v. Hobby Lobby; SBA List v. Driehaus; Riley v. California

Losing side (1): Kaley v. United States

To learn more about all these cases and the views of Cato-friendly scholars and practitioners, register for our 13th Annual Constitution Day Symposium, which will be held September 17 to review the term just past and look ahead to the next one. (This year’s conference features P.J. O’Rourke, Miguel Estrada, and Judge Diane Sykes, among others.) That’s also when we’ll be releasing the latest volume of the Cato Supreme Court Review. Speaking of which, I’d better get editing…

Topics:
Cato Publications, Government and Politics, Constitution, the Law, and the Courts