Quote of note:

"We changed from a court split 4 to 3, with two in the middle," said Richard Epstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago, referring to the dual swing votes of Justices O'Connor and Kennedy. "Now it's 4-1-4, and now it's Kennedy."

Alito Vote May Be Decisive in Marquee Cases This Term
By ADAM LIPTAK

WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 — Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. will have only one vote, of course, but it may be the decisive one in several of the marquee cases that will dominate the balance of the Supreme Court's term.

By the end of the term in early summer, legal analysts said, the nation will most likely have a good sense of whether Justice Alito will affirm or veer away from the direction set by his predecessor, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, in cases involving the treatment of terror suspects and campaign finance. Justice Alito was confirmed Tuesday by a 58-to-42 vote in the Senate.

A first taste of how his legal views on abortion, a signature issue for Justice O'Connor, may differ from hers could come before the end of the year. And other issues on which Justice O'Connor was often the swing vote, including affirmative action and religion, are certain to reach the court in coming years.

"Justice O'Connor's seat is the tipping point on a range of hot-button issues that the Supreme Court confronts every year, including at least a half a dozen cases the Supreme Court is still to confront this term," said Thomas C. Goldstein, a Washington lawyer who appears frequently before the court.

In other cases, though, Justice Alito's votes will probably have only a limited impact. He is expected to join the three justices considered conservative — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — to form a voting bloc of four. Balancing that is a four-member liberal bloc made up of Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

That leaves Justice Anthony M. Kennedy as the court's new fulcrum.