Fluidity on the United States Supreme Court: A Reexamination

Abstract

What is the extent and impact of fluidity on the Supreme Court? To answer this question partially the court's original vote on the merits is compared with its final vote during the period Harold Burton served as a justice (1945-1958). It is found that in 88 percent of the situations the justices voted the same way at both stages. There are no significant differences between the number of vote changes in major cases and in nonmajor ones. The fluidity that occurred was more likely to affect the size of a majority that was already winning at the original vote than to transform a minority at the original vote into a majority at the final vote. The vote changes also created a more attitudinally grounded vote, for the final vote scales generate better scale correlations than the original vote scales. These differences, however, disappear when the consensus cases are omitted.