There are cynics who say that Supreme Court justices are just politicians in black robes, willing to manipulate the law, and discard the Court’s own precedents, to suit their political views. But that’s misleading: the Court does not overrule its precedents very often at all. According to one analysis, in the last 75 years -- a period that includes activist Courts and restrained Courts, liberal Courts and conservative Courts -- the justices, in constitutional cases, have overruled just 91 of their previous decisions: an average of just over one each year.

Oral argument this month in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association made it look like a nearly 40-year-old decision called Abood v. Detroit Board of Education might be this year’s addition to that list. That would make no sense at all.

Read more at ACSblog