Washington — Washington, five years after Neil Gorsuch joined Supreme Court, almost four years after Brett Kavanaugh succeeded a retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, and 20 months before the 2020 election, Amy Coney Barrett, a newly confirmed Supreme Court justice, exercised her power in a blockbuster term that saw major decisions on abortion and religious rights.
Officially, the term that began in October came to an end Thursday with the justices making its final two decisions. One rescinding the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases and the second opening the way for the Biden administration’s rollback of the so-called “Remain in Mexico” immigration policy. Before receding for the summer.
It was the Supreme Court’s rulings last week that wiped away the constitutional right of abortion and expanded gun rights for more than a decade, which highlighted how the Supreme Court’s conservative majority is influencing the law.
“What we saw in this term, at minimum in the guns, abortion, and religion cases is a bold court. A court that’s bold both in tone and in its agenda. They are overruling precedents and making major changes, including to existing methodologies where we look for rights or evaluate gun regulations — they changed the way that lower courts are doing it,” Allison Orr Larsen from William & Mary told CBS News.
It’s difficult to describe a court taking big steps like that, major changes in doctrine, as 5-4 or 3-3. This feels very different from what we have seen in the past. It’s different in the tone of the opinions. She continued, “Dramatic, consequential.” It doesn’t seem to be in complete alignment with Chief Justice Roberts’s court. He prefers to take conservative steps but not at great speed. These are big-jolt, high-jolt decisions.
The 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion nationwide in 1973, was overturned by the court’s conservatives. They rejected Roberts’ approach to incremental changes to law and not major shifts.
Roberts concurred in the opinion and said that he would support the Mississippi law banning abortion after fifteen weeks. However, he called the decision to overrule Roe “a serious jolt for the legal system.” Roberts said that a “narrower decision” would be “markedly less disturbing.”
“When Chief Justice Roberts became the fifth conservative vote it wasn’t so a rush. Partly because he is an incrementalist, and partly because it was because he cares about legitimacy of the court, especially a court with his signature on it,” Caroline Mala Corbin (a University of Miami constitutional law professor) said. He is no longer the deciding vote. His vote is not necessary.”
The Supreme Court reversed Roe’s decision and declared ineffective New York’s handgun restrictions outside the home. It also ruled in favor religious rights in four other cases: supporting a former high school football coach, who lost his job after praying at the 50-yard line after games; supporting a Boston death row inmate who requested that his pastor pray for him; finding Boston had violated the First Amendment by refusing to allow an organization to fly a Christian Flag outside City Hall; striking down a Maine tuition aid program that excludes that provides religious instruction; and backing a.
The court ruled 8-1 in the case involving the Texas inmate, and 9-0 in the case involving Boston City Hall. It broke with ideology in the other two disputes.
Corbin stated that the Supreme Court’s rulings in religious liberty cases show that the court’s conservative majority will “eviscerate rights they don’t like.” Mark Rienzi is the president of Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. He believes that the recent rulings in favor religious rights are a corrective measure rather than an indication of court’s pro-religion conservative majority.
He said this week that the court was engaged in a long cleanup of decades of religious freedom law that had gone astray. “I believe they are truly committed to pluralism, to respecting the ability of people to live a different life than what the majority would like them to.”
Rienzi complained that the nation is “unfortunately inclined to be intolerant” of differences.
He said, “If I was a government or an opponent of religion or people of faith, I might take a look at it and decide to stop picking these fights. It’s quite clear that the court believes in the First Amendment.”
Adam Feldman, the founder of Empirical SCOTUS website, analysed the court’s term and found 17 unanimous decisions. However, the three liberal justices of the court, Justices Stephen Breyer (Sonia Sotomayor) and Elena Kagan, all dissented in 13 decisions. Roberts and Kavanaugh were, however, in the majority the most frequently, with 94.9%.
Although the term was filled with important, ground-shaking decisions it is already clear that the justices will be hearing blockbuster disputes involving voting rights, religious liberty, affirmative actions, and the power of state legislatures to establish federal election rules when they meet for their next term in October.
One case involves a Colorado web designer who refuses to offer services for gay weddings due to her religious beliefs. This is in violation of a state anti discrimination law. Lorie Smith, the web designer, claims that the law violates her freedom of speech and religious beliefs. The justices will decide whether a public accommodation law to force an artist to speak or remain silent infringes the First Amendment.
Larsen stated that while the Supreme Court will likely continue to support religious rights, Larsen suggested that the case might be one in which the justices adopt a more incremental approach.
She said that Obergefell could be overruled and she might make accommodations for religiously-restricted people to use their services in a gay couple’s wedding. This was in reference to the 2015 landmark decision which legalized same-sex marriage. “That’s an example of where we could return at that step to right for certain, but not a jump to the right.”
With the retirement of Breyer on Thursday and the appointment of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson as Justice, the court’s composition is changing. This was just hours after the final opinions had been issued. Jackson is the first Black woman appointed to the high court.
At a time when secrecy has been broken and trust between its members is being eroded by the leak of the majority opinion in the abortion case, she will be joining the Supreme Court. Roberts ordered an investigation into where the document was disclosed, but it is still unknown who the person sharing the document with Politico reporters.
Larsen spoke of Jackson as saying, “She is entering into a new family during a time where the family dynamics are quite tense.”
Jackson will not be filling Breyer’s seat, but it will not alter the ideological composition of the court. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority should continue for many years.
Corbin stated that the dissenting justices must look long-term and understand they won’t always be in minority. At some point, their dissenting opinions may become a blueprint for the majority opinion. They continue to highlight the weaknesses in the majority’s reasoning, as well as the deviations from accepted practices. Corbin said that they will be writing the blueprint for future decisions, which may not yet become majority opinions.
Although Mr. Biden has made a historic mark on the court by appointing Jackson, the reversal and expansion of Second Amendment rights demonstrates the transformation of court made possible through Senate Republicans and former President Donald Trump.
Corbin stated that President Obama would have been able to appoint a Supreme Court justice he was entitled, and they wouldn’t have had a majority to overturn Roe. Chief Justice Roberts would write the majority in Dobbs, which would have meant that the court might have ended abortion rights at some point, but not on Friday. “Whose legacy is this really?” Is it Mitch McConnell or Donald Trump?
