What's on the docket for Chief Justice Roberts's next decade?
Monday marks the start of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.鈥檚 second decade in court. Over Roberts's first ten years, the Court made important decisions on a including聽health care, privacy, gun rights, campaign finance, and marriage equality. This decade brings a new host of potentially landmark decisions.
鈥淭his coming term will again put into focus that and that the 2016 presidential elections will be hugely consequential in shaping constitutional and other law for perhaps a generation or more,鈥� said Neal E. Devins, a law professor at William & Mary in an interview with the New York Times.
The Times characterized the Court's last term as one of 鈥渓eftward drift and acrimony,鈥� citing bitter exchanges over the death penalty.
The upcoming term, which will likely hear cases on聽death penalty, abortion, union laws, and affirmative action,聽will establish whether this drift was more than just an anomaly.
With the recent accusations against Planned Parenthood, it鈥檚 likely the Court will hear its first abortion case since 2007. The Times reports the most likely case is Whole Woman鈥檚 Health Center v. Cole, No. 15-274, 鈥� that threatens to reduce the number of abortion clinics鈥� from 40 to 10. 鈥淪hould the court agree to hear the case, it is likely to produce the since 1992, when reaffirmed the constitutional right to abortion identified in in 1973.鈥�
Union laws have also been a topic of controversy. 鈥淭he question of whether teachers and other government employees can be required to subsidize the speech of a union they do not support as a condition of working for their own government is now squarely before the court,鈥� Mark Mix, the president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, said in a referring to Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, case No. 14-915. The case argues that 鈥渂eing compelled to pay union fees to subsidize [disagreeable] activities鈥� is a violation of First Amendment rights.
And in a move earlier this summer, the Supreme Court decided to hear the case on affirmative action again, suggesting the 鈥渃ourt may limit or even end鈥� such policy. 鈥淎 decision barring the use of race in admissions would that the majority said it expected to last for 25 years.鈥�
