supermajority

[soo-per-muh-jawr-i-tee, -jor-]

noun

plural

supermajorities 

1. a majority that must represent some percentage more than a simple majority.

2. a majority greater than a specified number, as 60%, of the total: required to pass certain types of legislation, override vetos, etc.

Word History and Origins

Origin of supermajority¹

super- + majority

Example Sentences

A weak showing could leave him with a Peronist supermajority in the new legislature.

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Callais, the Voting Rights Act is in the crosshairs once again, as the court’s conservative supermajority might strike down the act’s last standing pillar.

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These aggressive interventions have drawn exasperated objections from dissenting justices and lower-court judges, who are left to decipher what the Republican-appointed supermajority is doing.

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The elevation of ostensibly narrow, technical legal questions to fodder for well-funded PR campaigns probably does not happen without the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett in 2020, which yielded a six-justice conservative supermajority with a clear policy agenda and a demonstrated willingness to set aside institutional norms in order to pick winners and losers.

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But when the court is controlled by a conservative supermajority, organizations like the ADF and First Liberty know that their audience might never be friendlier than it is right now.

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