Five cases to watch as a conservative Supreme Court begins its new term

[Polybius]

When the Supreme Court starts its new term Monday, the six Republican-appointed justices are expected to resume the project they began last term of remaking U.S. constitutional law in a conservative image.

With many Americans are still reckoning with a term that eliminated the federal abortion right in the Dobbs decision, expanded Second Amendment and religious rights and shrank the U.S. government’s power to curb climate change, the 6-3 conservative majority court has chosen a set of highly combustible cases that court watchers believe are likely to break along ideological lines.

“In most of the high-profile cases besides Dobbs, we saw 6-3 decisions, with Republican-appointed justices on one side and Democratic-appointed justices on the other,” Irv Gornstein, executive director of Georgetown Law’s Supreme Court Institute, said recently of the court’s prior term.

“There’s no reason to think this coming term, or any term in the foreseeable future, will be any different,” he said. “On things that matter most, get ready for a lot of 6-3s.”

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[Polybius]

1. This one reminds me of the Colorado baker who refused to make a gay wedding cake

LGBTQ discrimination

The Supreme Court will hear a First Amendment dispute that deals with a Colorado website designer’s refusal to make her services available for same-sex weddings.

The case arose when web designer Lorie Smith’s plan to exclude gay weddings, due to her religious belief, ran headlong into a Colorado nondiscrimination law. That law makes it illegal for businesses that serve the public to turn away customers based on sexual orientation or other aspects of identity.

The case will test whether the Colorado law infringes on free-speech protections by compelling people like Smith to engage in speech they oppose.