Litigation

Divided, More Diverse Supreme Court Opens Term

By Peter Hardin

The Supreme Court, with three female justices sitting simultaneously for the first time in history, opened its new term today amid widespread commentary about what the new court, and the new term, will bring.

A Washington Post article noted the “unprecedented diversity” of the court but also said it harbors “the potential for a split that would for the first time in decades reflect the partisan ideologies of the presidents who appointed them.” Here is how Barbara Perry, a scholar at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, put it:

“I think rarely in the 20th century was there so obviously a partisan and ideological split on the court.”

“There will be five appointees by Republicans who are very conservative or at least moderately conservative and four Democratic appointees who are liberal or moderate liberals.”

With this composition there is a risk to “the distinction the justices make about the court’s status as something apart from the nation’s increasingly fractious and partisan politics,” suggested Nathaniel Persily, a Columbia University law professor.

Justice Elena Kagan took the bench for the first time. The former U.S. solicitor general will be absent for a number of upcoming cases because she has recused herself, due to involvement with the cases in her former post. A Washington Post article noted she has recused in 25 of 51 cases that the court has decided to hear so far.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the seating of three women on the high court would affect “the public perception of where women are in the justice system.” She added, “The three of us, we are here to stay.”

A New York Times preview of the hot issues coming before the court zeroed in on a First Amendment case pitting a deceased Marine’s father against a Kansas church whose members carried out an anti-gay protest at the son’s funeral ceremony. That case also was featured in a Christian Science Monitor article.

A New York Times editorial, meanwhile, said the high court under Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. “has championed corporations,” and “[t]he cases it has chosen for review this term suggest it will continue that trend.”

In other coverage, Linda Greenhouse called the Supreme Court that sat today “the fourth Roberts court,” due to changing justices, in the Opinionator blog of the New York Times.

Justice Kagan’s joining the court is not expected to shift its ideological balance. President Obama named her to succeed liberal-leaning Justice John Paul Stevens, who retired.

“If Kagan votes as Stevens did, her presence would not affect the ideological divide that has four justices on the conservative side, four on the liberal side and [Justice Anthony] Kennedy in the middle, though more often with the conservatives,” the Associated Press reported.

Full post as published by The Gavel on October 04, 2010 (boomark / email).