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SCOTUS to Open New Term Monday 10/01 08:19
(AP) -- The Supreme Court opens its new term Monday, hearing arguments for
the first time after a summer break and with new Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Already the court has said it will decide cases on a range of major issues
including affirmative action, voting rights and the rights of LGBTQ people. The
justices will add more cases to their docket in coming months.
A look at some of the cases the court has already agreed to hear. The
justices are expected to decide each of the cases before taking a summer break
at the end of June:
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
In cases from Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, the
court could end any consideration of race in college admissions. If this seems
familiar, it's because the high court has been asked repeatedly over the past
20 years to end affirmative action in higher education. In previous cases from
Michigan and Texas, the court reaffirmed the validity of considering college
applicants' race among many factors. But this court is more conservative than
those were.
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VOTING RIGHTS
The court could further reduce protections for minority voters in its third
major consideration in 10 years of the landmark Voting Rights Act, which was
enacted to combat enduring racial discrimination in voting. The case the
justices are hearing involves Alabama, where just one of the state's seven
congressional districts has a Black majority. That's even though 27% of the
state's residents are Black. A three-judge panel that included two appointees
of President Donald Trump agreed that the state should have to create a second
district with a Black majority, but the Supreme Court stopped any changes and
said it would hear the case. A ruling for the state could wipe away all but the
most obvious cases of intentional discrimination on the basis of race.
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ELECTIONS
Republicans are asking the justices to embrace a novel legal concept that
would limit state courts' oversight of elections for Congress. North Carolina's
top court threw out the state's congressional map that gave Republicans a
lopsided advantage in a closely divided state and eventually came up with a map
that basically evenly divided the state's 14 congressional districts between
Democrats and Republicans. The state GOP argues that state courts have no role
to play in congressional elections, including redistricting, because the U.S.
Constitution gives that power to state legislatures alone. Four conservative
justices have expressed varying levels of openness to the "independent state
legislature" theory.
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CLEAN WATER
This is yet another case in which the court is being asked to discard an
earlier ruling and loosen the regulation of property under the nation's chief
law to combat water pollution. The case involves an Idaho couple who won an
earlier high court round in their bid to build a house on property near a lake
without getting a permit under the Clean Water Act. The outcome could change
the rules for millions of acres of property that contain wetlands.
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IMMIGRATION
The Biden administration is back at the Supreme Court to argue for a change
in immigration policy from the Trump administration. It's is appealing a ruling
against a Biden policy prioritizing deportation of people in the country
illegally who pose the greatest public safety risk. Last term, the justices by
a 5-4 vote paved the way for the administration to end the Trump policy that
required asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for their court hearing. In July,
also by a 5-4 vote, the high court refused to allow the administration to
implement policy guidance for deportations. A Trump-era policy favored
deporting people in the country illegally regardless of criminal history or
community ties.
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LGBTQ RIGHTS
A new clash involving religion, free speech and the rights of LGBTQ people
will also be before the justices. The case involves Colorado graphic and
website designer Lorie Smith who wants to expand her business and offer wedding
website services. She says her Christian beliefs would lead her to decline any
request from a same-sex couple to design a wedding website, however, and that
puts her in conflict with a Colorado anti-discrimination law.
The case is a new chance for the justices to confront issues the court
skirted five years ago in a case about a baker objected to making cakes for
same-sex weddings. The court has grown more conservative since that time.
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NATIVE AMERICAN ADOPTION
In November, the court will review a federal law that gives Native Americans
preference in adoptions of Native children. The case presents the most
significant legal challenges to the Indian Child Welfare Act since its 1978
passage. The law has long been championed by Native American leaders as a means
of preserving their families and culture. A federal appeals court in April
upheld the law and Congress' authority to enact it. But the judges also found
some of the law's provisions unconstitutional, including preferences for
placing Native American children with Native adoptive families and in Native
foster homes.
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BACON LAW BACKLASH
Also on the menu for the justices: a California animal rights law. The case
stems from a 2018 ballot measure where California voters barred the sale of
pork in the state if the pig it came from or the pig's mother was raised in
confined conditions preventing them from laying down or turning around. Two
agricultural associations challenging the law say almost no farms satisfy those
conditions. They say the "massive costs of complying" with the law will "fall
almost exclusively on out-of-state farmers" and that the costs will be passed
on to consumers nationwide.
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ART WORLD
The court's resolution of a dispute involving pieces by artist Andy Warhol
could have big consequences in the art world and beyond. If the Warhol side
loses a copyright dispute involving an image Warhol made of the musician
Prince, other artworks could be in peril, lawyers say. But the other side says
if Warhol wins, it would be a license for other artists to blatantly copy.
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