During its October 2012 term, the U.S. Supreme Court decided a number of high-profile cases, including cases on voting rights and same-sex marriage. The Court decided these and a number of other cases – 23 in all this term – by 5-4 (or 5-3) majorities. The “conservative bloc” members – Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito – were in the majority (with Justice Kennedy) in 10 of these 23 cases. And indeed the Court’s conservatives frequently vote to decide cases in the same way. For example, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito agreed in 90% of all the Court’s cases this term, and Justices Scalia and Thomas agreed in 86%.

But the same (or even higher) levels of agreement were seen this term among the Court’s “liberal” justices: Justices Breyer and Kagan agreed in 91% of the cases, and Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor agreed in 94%. The four members of the liberal wing voted as a bloc in most (17) of the 5-justice majority decisions, as did the four conservative justices (in 16 of the 23). And we see similar levels of agreement among the justices each year.

Ideological voting, in other words, is a two-way street. Liberal justices and conservative justices tend to vote with their ideological fellow travelers. The media often oversimplify this phenomenon by suggesting that a given justice’s vote is attributable to the political affiliation of the president who made the particular judicial appointment. But the reality is more complex and less sinister. Although decisions are to be made in accordance with the law, in most cases sound arguments can be made for differing interpretations of the relevant legal principles. And the suggestion that the justices simply do the bidding of their appointers ignores the fact that judges (like the rest of us) have distinct, sincerely-held political and constitutional philosophies, and that they (legitimately) bring those approaches to bear on the questions they decide.

The percentage of decisions made by a 5-justice majority during the recent term (29%) is slightly higher than the recent (previous four terms) average (of 22%). But significantly more (49%) of the Court’s decisions this year were unanimous. With all of the media focus on the justices’ disagreements, it is important to recognize that in most cases, the much-publicized right-left Supreme Court divide is bridged.

This piece was originally published in the September/October issue of WCNY Magazine.

For more from Professor Dolak, check out the recent SLACE Archive post about her appearance on WCNY‘s The Ivory Tower as well as her regular appearances on the program Friday nights at 8PM.