I don’t claim to have a great track record of predicting opinion assignments, even late in the term when the Court has relatively few cases outstanding. But that won’t stop me from trying again.
The Court heard oral argument in 58 cases this term, and it dismissed one case after argument. That means that there was a total of 57 majority assignments to be divided among the nine justices. Given the Court’s practice of trying to keep the number of assignments roughly even, it’s reasonable to project that six justices will have six assignments and three will have seven.
There is a wide disparity among the justices in the number of majority opinions issued so far. (See SCOTUSblog chart at bottom here.) On the high end, Justice Sotomayor, Justice Gorsuch, and Justice Jackson have each issued six opinions, and Justice Thomas, Justice Kagan, and Justice Barrett have each had five. On the low end, Justice Alito and Justice Kavanaugh have had only two majority opinions apiece so far, and Chief Justice Roberts had had only three.
After issuing three opinions today, the Court has 17 cases remaining. The Chief, Alito, and Kavanaugh will probably account for 11 of the remaining majority opinions. (Or perhaps 10, if the dismissed case was originally assigned to one of them.)
Here are my guesses on some of the biggest remaining cases:
Trump v. Slaughter (president’s power to remove FTC commissioner) and Trump v. Cook (president’s power to fire member of Federal Reserve Board): I’ll predict majority opinions by the Chief. These rulings need to fit together nicely. One of the privileges of being Chief is taking the big cases when you want them. One case was heard in December and one in January, and the Chief hasn’t written for either month.
Trump v. Barbara (birthright citizenship): The Chief has to take this one if he’s in the majority. (He also hasn’t written for a March case.)
National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC (campaign finance): Either Alito or Kavanaugh (neither of whom has written for December calendar). I’ll guess Alito.
Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J. (laws protecting women’s and girls’ sports): One justice should write both. Neither Alito nor Kavanaugh has written for January. Because I guessed Alito for NRSC v. FEC, I’ll pick Kavanaugh here.
Watson v. RNC (election law): The Chief, Thomas, Alito, and Barrett haven’t written yet for March. I’ll guess Alito, with Barrett as my second pick.