WASHINGTON 鈥 Disputes over a wedding cake for a same-sex couple and partisan electoral maps top the Supreme Court鈥檚 agenda in the first full term of the Trump presidency. Conservatives will look for a boost from the newest justice, Neil Gorsuch, in a year that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has said will be momentous.
President Trump鈥檚 travel ban appears likely to disappear from the court鈥檚 docket, at least for now.
But plenty of high-profile cases remain.
The justices will hear important cases that touch on gay rights and religious freedoms, the polarized American electorate, the government鈥檚 ability to track people without search warrants, employees鈥 rights to band together over workplace disputes and states鈥 rights to allow betting on professional and college sporting events.
Last year, 鈥渢hey didn鈥檛 take a lot of major cases because they didn鈥檛 want to be deadlocked 4-to-4,鈥 said Eric Kasper, director of the Center for Constitutional Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. 鈥淭his year, that problem doesn鈥檛 present itself.鈥
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Gorsuch quickly showed he would be an ally of the court鈥檚 most conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, most recently joining them in objecting to the court鈥檚 decision to block an execution in Georgia.
While justices can change over time, Gorsuch鈥檚 presence on the bench leaves liberals with a fair amount of trepidation, especially in cases involving the rights of workers.
The very first case of the term, set for arguments Monday, could affect tens of millions of workers who have signed clauses as part of their employment contracts that not only prevent them from taking employment disputes to federal court, but also require them to arbitrate complaints individually, rather than in groups.
鈥淚鈥檓 very fearful, given the new Supreme Court, of what will happen,鈥 said Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
Just on Thursday, the justices added a case that has the potential to financially cripple Democratic-leaning labor unions that represent government workers.
Taken together, the those cases 鈥渉ave a real chance of being a one-two punch against workers鈥 rights,鈥 said Claire Prestel, a lawyer for the Service Employees International Union.
In the term鈥檚 marquee cases about redistricting and wedding cakes, 81-year-old Justice Anthony Kennedy, closest to the court鈥檚 center, remains the pivotal vote.
In an era of sharp political division, it may be now or never for the court to rein in excessively partisan redistricting. If the justices do set limits, their decision could affect elections nationwide.
The high court has weighed in several times on gerrymandering over the past 30 years, without agreeing on a standard that would allow courts to oversee a process that elected lawmakers handle in most states.
But a lower court was convinced that Democratic voters鈥 challenge in Wisconsin to the Republican-led redistricting following the 2010 census offered a sensible way to proceed. The GOP plan seemed to consign Democrats to minority status in the Wisconsin Assembly in a state that otherwise is closely divided between the parties.
The only real question in the case is whether Kennedy will decide that partisan redistricting 鈥渉as just gone too far鈥 in Wisconsin and other states where one party has a significant edge in the legislature, but statewide elections are closely fought, said Donald Verrilli Jr., solicitor general during the Obama administration.
The wedding cake case stems from a Colorado baker鈥檚 refusal, based on his religious beliefs, to make a cake for a same-sex couple.
Colorado鈥檚 civil rights commission said baker Jack Phillips鈥 refusal violated the state鈥檚 anti-discrimination law.
As the case has come to the Supreme Court, the focus is on whether Phillips, who regards his custom-made cakes as works of art, can be compelled by the state to produce a message with which he disagrees.
