Rifts open at Supreme Court transformed by Trump

New appointee Barrett dealt blow to chief justice on religious services case

WASHINGTON— A few minutes before midnight Wednesday, the U.S. got its first glimpse of how profoundly President Donald Trump had transformed the Supreme Court.

Just months ago, Chief Justice John Roberts was at the peak of his power, holding the controlling vote in closely divided cases and hardly ever finding himself in dissent.

But the arrival of Justice Amy Coney Barrett late last month, which put a staunch conservative in the seat formerly held by the liberal mainstay, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, meant that it was only a matter of time before the chief justice’s leadership would be tested.

On Wednesday, Barrett dealt the chief justice a body blow. She cast the decisive vote in a 5-4 ruling that rejected restrictions on religious services in New York imposed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to combat the coronavirus, shoving the chief justice into dissent with the court’s three remaining liberals. It was one of six opinions the court issued Wednesday, spanning 33 pages and opening a window on a court in turmoil.

The ruling was at odds with earlier ones in cases from California and Nevada issued before Ginsburg’s death in September. Those decisions upheld restrictions on church services by 5-4 votes, with Roberts in the majority.

Wednesday’s ruling was almost certainly a taste of things to come.

While Ginsburg was alive, Roberts voted with the court’s four-member liberal wing in cases striking down a restrictive Louisiana abortion law, blocking a Trump administration initiative that would have rolled back protections for young immigrants known as “Dreamers,” refusing to allow a question on citizenship to be added to the census and saving the Affordable Care Act.

Had Barrett rather than Ginsburg been on the court when those cases were decided, the results might well have flipped. In coming cases, too, Barrett will almost certainly play a decisive role. Her support for claims of religious freedom, a subject of questioning at her confirmation hearings and a theme in her appellate decisions, will almost certainly play a prominent role.

Democrats had feared, and Trump had predicted, that Barrett’s vote might be crucial in a case arising from the presidential election. But there is no case on the court’s docket or on the horizon that has a realistic potential to alter the outcome.

It is not clear how Barrett will vote in the latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act, which was argued this month. But, judging from the questioning, the act is quite likely to survive however she votes.

The ruling issued l ate Wednesday night said that Cuomo’s strict virus restrictions — capping attendance at religious services at 10 people in “red zones” where risk was highest, and at 25 in slightly less dangerous “orange zones” — violated the First Amendment’s protection of the free exercise of religion.