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The New
York Times
Supreme Court
Has Deep Docket in Its New Term
By Adam Liptak
October 7, 2013
WASHINGTON
— After back-to-back terms ending in
historic rulings that riveted the nation, the Supreme Court might have
been
expected to return to its usual diet of routine cases that rarely
engage the
public.
Instead,
the court’s new term, which starts
Monday, will feature an extraordinary series of cases on consequential
constitutional issues, including campaign contributions, abortion
rights,
affirmative action, public prayer and presidential power.
“This term
is deeper in important cases than
either of the prior two terms,” said Irving
L. Gornstein, the
executive director of the Supreme
Court
Institute at
Georgetown University.
An
unusually large number of the new cases put
important precedents at risk, many in areas of the law the court has
been
rapidly revising since the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
She was
at the court’s ideological center, and her moderate instincts played a
crucial
role in shaping the court’s jurisprudence on abortion, race, religion
and the
role of money in politics.
Justice
O’Connor was succeeded in 2006 by the
more conservative Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., and the impact of that
switch is
likely to be felt in new cases in all four of those areas, with the
court
revisiting and perhaps replacing precedents from earlier courts in all
of them.
In the
last term, the court grappled with the
nature of equality — in college admissions, in the voting booth and at
the
altar. The new term will include a run of cases on the structure of the
political process, including ones on the balance of power between the
branches
of government and the role of money in politics.
One
case, National
Labor
Relations Board v. Noel Canning, No.
12-1281, is a test of
President Obama’s ability to bypass the Senate by making recess
appointments. It has
partisan overtones reminiscent of the clash over the constitutionality
of
his health
care law.
“Canning
seems to me the most important case on
the court’s docket to date,” said Gregory
G. Garre, a lawyer
with Latham &
Watkins who served as solicitor general in the administration of
President
George W. Bush. “Once again, the court and the president seem destined
to face
off, with potentially huge stakes for both institutions.”
A second
case continues a signature project of
the court, led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., which has been
subjecting
campaign finance laws to skeptical scrutiny in a half-dozen decisions…
Read the
rest of the article at the New York
Times
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