Roberts Jr. insisted, as he regularly does, that members of the Supreme Court are not “political actors.” Yet with the court’s new term beginning Monday, scarcely a month before the closely watched midterms, the court may be unable to avoid getting uncomfortably pulled into electoral politics. With partisans on both sides primed for potential election challenges, lawsuits to settle hotly contested elections could end up before the court, potentially with the control of Congress at stake. They would land on top of an already packed docket of cases on culture war issues and President Trump’s agenda that were selected by the justices to be heard from the thousands of petitions they receive each year.
The result could be another consequential and controversial span on the bench for the justices, even as their public poll numbers have dipped and elected leaders and candidates, particularly in the insurgent wing of the Democratic Party, have called for an overhaul of the court. The court “knows what an extraordinary politicized moment we are in,” said Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University Law School. For that reason, the justices would prefer not to be involved in lawsuits that would affect results or allow state officials to affect results.
But, he said, if the justices see a true post-election emergency, “it’s hard to imagine they wouldn’t intervene” if called on. The court will hear oral arguments in about 60 cases, starting on Monday with a major environmental lawsuit, and continuing through late April. During that period, they will deliberate at private conferences, draft and exchange opinions and release the court’s rulings.
The most closely divided decisions are typically announced on the final days of the term in late June or early July. But the justices also field emergency requests and issue quick-turn orders without a lengthy briefing period or hearing arguments. The new term was foreshadowed by a busy summer for the court, which grappled with a series of emergency requests critical to the nation’s political system.
The justices blocked both President Trump’s plan to dramatically overhaul how Americans vote by mail in the upcoming election and three separate times stepped in to block Missouri from using a congressional map drawn to advantage Republicans. At the same time, they allowed the administration to deploy an online system combining citizenship information, Social Security numbers and other sensitive data about millions of Americans to help states hunt for supposedly ineligible voters. In each case, the majority issued unsigned orders that academics and advocates said suggested that the justices were trying to avoid changing voting rules or creating confusion for state election officials ahead of November.
In the mail-ballot matter, election officials from both parties had cautioned that Mr. Trump’s mail-in ballot plan would be disruptive and confusing, potentially putting millions of votes at risk. In the Missouri case, the court warned of “electoral chaos” if the state were to change course so close to the election and use the GOP map, as pressed by Republican officials.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
