As a New Year starts, the Supreme Court returns on Monday for the first of four argument sessions.  This term is already shaping up as a weird term.  By the fourth argument session of the term, you typically have at least one opinion from an argued case and a handful of opinions granting summary reversals in cases in which the lower courts clearly erred.  While the bigger “political” cases normally take longer, the Supreme Court also takes “routine” cases that simply involve conflicting interpretations of statutes and regulations by different circuits.  It is not unusual for these cases to be resolved by unanimous opinions.  Maybe it’s just that none of the October cases (with the exception of the Andy Warhol case) fits that criteria, but the lack of an opinion is unusual.

At this point, the first half of the term saw some rather significant cases that will undoubtedly get attention when they are decided — the Voting Rights Act dispute regarding Alabama’s new district lines and the failure to create a second majority minority district (which will also impact the lines in Florida, Georgia, and Lousiana); the challenges to the Affirmative Action programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina; the challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act; challenges to the ability of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to set priorities related to deportation; whether state courts can use state constitutions to regulate congressional redistricting; and whether there is a free speech exception to civil rights laws (specifically those barring discrimination based on sexual orientation).

The January session should be relatively quiet.  There are two labor cases on the docket — one involving the weird hybrid status of certain national guard employees and whether that hybrid statute makes them subject to certain protections for federal workers and the other whether an employer can maintain a state tort against a labor union for timing the start of the strike to damage the property of the employer. Continue Reading...