Linda Greenhouse, who reported on the court for The New York Times for 30 years, previews the term in a Times guest essay:
“Chief Justice John Roberts has accomplished so much of his agenda that it’s not easy, as he begins his 22nd Supreme Court term, to think of what unfinished business might remain.
“Affirmative action is dead. Roe v. Wade is a fading memory. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is in shreds, rendered incapable of serving its original mission of preventing states from undermining the political power of minority citizens. The executive branch agencies known collectively as the administrative state have lost their independence, with the president now able to fire nearly all agency heads for any reason or no reason at all. Federal judges are no longer to defer to an agency’s interpretation of its own authority, instead being told to decide for themselves the validity of agency regulations. Historical claims that fly under the banner of ‘originalism’ have frozen the government’s ability to regulate the ownership of lethal weapons.”
But religion is one major project of the Roberts court that isn’t complete, Greenhouse says.
Nina Totenberg of NPR, another longtime reporter on the court, takes up the narrative:
Perhaps the biggest case of the term involves religion, she says, “a subject on which the court’s conservative super majority has dramatically changed its legal doctrine. Indeed for the better part of a century, the Supreme Court emphasized the First Amendment’s separation of church and state, with the free exercise of religion playing an important — but secondary — role. Since President Trump’s appointment of three new justices, however, things have changed.”
“It’s literally the opposite of what the law was not that long ago, and it’s just a complete shift,” Michigan State University law professor Frank Ravitch tells Totenberg.
This term, the court may be on the verge of requiring taxpayers to fund religious schools that refuse to admit LGBTQ students, Totenberg says. The court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on the case on Nov. 3.
Other cases
The case to be argued as the court opens its term Monday is on climate change: whether state and local governments can sue energy companies for allegedly deceiving the public about the damaging effects of fossil fuels.
The court will hear a case in December on whether state and local governments violate the Second Amendment right to bear arms when they ban semi-automatic weapons, like the AR-15.
The justices also are to hear arguments in December over whether the Department of Homeland Security may deport migrants to third countries when their countries of origin refuse to accept them.
A second immigration case focuses on the Trump administration’s policy of detaining undocumented immigrants without a bond hearing, regardless of how long they’ve been in the United States.
Totenberg lists other cases that the justices may take up.
She notes the probability that if there are serious problems involving the midterm elections, they likely will end up on the court’s emergency docket.
Voting rights, commentary on briefing.center
“The vote is precious. It is the most powerful non-violent tool we have in a democratic society, and we must use it.” — late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., civil rights activist
Here are regularly updated voting rights resources for the November midterm elections, on John Dineen’s briefing.center website. And here is John’s daily quick commentary on his briefing.center home page.
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