Kavanaugh overshadows SC term:
America
The US Supreme Court begins its new term on Monday in an awkward position, down one justice as the fierce fight unfolds in the Senate over confirmation of President Donald Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to a lifetime job as a justice.
With eight justices rather than the usual nine, the court was set to hear arguments in two cases as it opens its nine-month term, according to tradition, on the first Monday of October.
Justice Anthony Kennedy retired effective in July, leaving the court ideologically deadlocked with four conservatives and four liberals on the bench awaiting the outcome of the Kavanaugh battle. Trump nominated the conservative federal appeals court judge in July but his confirmation in the Senate remained in doubt over sexual misconduct allegations that he denies.
Unlike prior years, when a series of major cases awaited the justices, there are no blockbusters yet on their calendar. Their first argument on Monday is a property rights case involving protected habitat for a warty amphibian known as the dusky gopher frog.
The court’s previous term, which ended in June, included more 5-4 decisions than usual, with conservatives in the majority. These rulings included approving Trump’s travel ban on people from several Muslimmajority nations, prohibiting a type of regulation of anti-abortion clinics, and banning certain public-sector union fees.
“After a term of challenging cases and issues, and an unusually high number of 5-4 decisions, as I see it, we needed our summer break,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joked to an audience last week.
For the current term that runs through next June, the court does have some important cases, though none yet of the magnitude of the biggest from the previous term. (AP)