The Roberts Court has attracted headlines overturning longstanding and high-profile precedents, including Roe v. Wade and Chevron v. NRDC. This term, the Court appears poised to topple another, Humphrey's Executor, if (as expected) it upholds President Trump's removal of Rebecca Slaughter from the Federal Trade Commission.
In the past, I have noted that the Roberts Court has overturned precedent less often than did the Warren, Burger, or Rehnquist Courts. Indeed, as I've blogged repeatedly and written in National Review, it is not particularly close, as shown in data compiled by the Library of Congress and in the Supreme Court database (which includes precedent alteration in its tabulations).
Given the rash of recent decisions overturning prominent precedents, it is reasonable to ask whether this claims are still true. The answer? Thus far it is. Even though the Court now has a six-justice conservative majority, which should make it easier to overturn precedents at odds with conservative jurisprudential principles, the rate at which the Court is overturning prior precedents has not (yet) increased. To the contrary, it appears to have slowed.
