The attorneys for the state, who are defending the maps, got plenty of questions from Kennedy, while the Wisconsin Democrats, who want the maps struck down, got none. Kennedy spoke 10 times during the state of Wisconsin’s arguments. He asked five questions and made five statements.
“If you get a lot of questions, you’re going to lose,” Adam Liptak, The New York Times’ Supreme Court reporter, told FiveThirtyEight in 2015.
Justices aren’t just asking questions to get information from the lawyers arguing their cases. In some ways, the questions aren’t meant for the lawyers at all. The justices ask questions to signal their positions to their fellow members of the court, and to potentially sway other justices to their side. If they’re skeptical of one side’s argument, they often pepper that side with queries. Chief Justice John Roberts has even described the lawyers as a “backboard” — the questions bounce off them and come right back to the bench.
