The Supreme Court will hear multiple new cases in its new term beginning on Monday, showing the increasing willingness of the conservative majority to take on divisive issues as it continues to steer the court on a rightward path.
Last term the conservatives delivered massive blockbuster rulings. Two of the biggest were on abortion access and gun rights, restricting the former and widening the latter.
Now the court returns from summer recess prepared to tackle more major cases.
Potential rulings in upcoming cases could end affirmative action policies, cripple the Voting Rights Act, and make it easier for businesses to refuse service to LGBTQ people. Experts said the justices are taking things that are causing real conflicts around the country.
And furthermore, the court appears likely to continue to take up cases particularly important to conservatives. Experts said the court is looking for cases that are more and more ideological because of how stacked the conservative court is.
Former president Donald Trump added three justices during his short one term in office at the White House, stacking the court with conservative justices and giving the court its current conservative supermajority.
Brett Kavanaugh now wields outsized influence over the speed and limits of the court’s rightward shift. Experts called Kavanaugh the “median justice,” as he is not as far to the right as four of the other conservative justices.
Chief Justice John Roberts – an incrementalist conservative – and liberal Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson are to Kavanaugh’s left.
Legal experts said that the Supreme Court is Kavanaugh’s court. In its most recent term, there were 14 rulings decided on a 6-3 tally with the conservative justices on one side and the liberals on the other.
That is up from 10 on strictly ideological lines the previous term.
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