Here is how I described that split in The Untimely Death of Bush v. Gore (Stanford Law Review):

The two judges in the Crawford majority were appointed by Republican presidents while the dissenting judge was appointed by a Democratic president.200 What’s worse, the Seventh Circuit recently voted to deny en banc rehearing in Crawford, with the vote splitting along party lines (with one exception).201 Among other things, the dissenting judges argued that the Crawford majority applied the wrong standard of review,202 an issue that is ripe for consideration by the Supreme Court203 and now raised by the plaintiffs in their petition for writ of certiorari in the Court.204

I am not arguing that the Seventh Circuit judges were consciously making decisions based upon what would be best for the party they support; instead, I am arguing that in the face of a paucity of evidence, the judges may be swayed by beliefs that seem to correlate with those who are members of their party.

Judge Posner’s majority opinion, for example, goes out of its way both to minimize the extent to which this law is likely to burden voters and to suggest (without any real evidence) that there is a great deal of impersonation vote fraud going on out there that is not easily detected. Judge Evans, in dissent, is the mirror image. He is greatly bothered by what he sees as the potential for voters to be disenfranchised (pointing to some suggestive anecdotes), while dismissing concerns about vote fraud as unsupported by the evidence.