There seems to be a cottage industry on the Left that is busy generating claims that, as the title of this Washington Post piece by Paul Waldman puts it, the Supreme Court “is poised to deliver conservatives a string of big victories.” I wish that it were so, but I simply don’t see it.

Here’s Waldman’s list of big cases in which conservatives will likely win “sweeping, consequential victories”:

Among the cases the Court will be hearing are an affirmative action case involving the University of Texas, a case asking whether congressional districts must adhere to a “one person, one vote” standard [sic*], a case testing state restrictions meant to shut down abortion clinics, a case asking whether public-sector unions can require non-members who benefit from their collective bargaining to contribute to those efforts, and yet another lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act’s contraception provision [sic**].

According to Waldman, only “a couple” of these cases “may be in doubt,” so “it’s almost certainly going to be a great term for Republicans.”

Alas, of the five cases I understand Waldman to be (rather confusedly and tendentiously) invoking, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if conservatives win no more than one. I hold out some hope that there might be victories in more of the cases, but if so, they’re unlikely to be “sweeping” and “consequential.”

Waldman contends that “conservatives have enjoyed a conservative majority for a couple of decades now,” and he grudgingly concedes only that Justice Kennedy “sometimes joins with the liberals.” But the Court over the past two decades has been very much the Kennedy Court, and while it’s certainly true that Kennedy has sided with the conservatives in some important cases, his defections to the Left have been numerous and momentous. (In addition to last term’s many losses and Windsor, see, for example, the list in my point 1 here from several years ago.) So, no, there has not at all been an operating “conservative majority for a couple of decades now.” And there is no reason to expect one in the Court’s term.

* Contra Waldman, the issue in Evenwel v. Abbott concerns state legislative districts, not congressional districts, and the population measure to be used for the “one person, one vote” standard, not whether that standard must be followed.

** Contra Waldman, there is no “contraception provision” in the Obamacare statute. The HHS contraceptive mandate is a discretionary regulatory implementation of the statute.