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The major Supreme Court decisions to watch for in June
In June, the US Supreme Court will begin issuing decisions on cases involving everything from reproductive rights to gun ownership to homeless encampments to former president Donald Trump’s criminal cases. Yale Law School Lecturer and staff writer at the New York Times Magazine Emily Bazelon joins Ian Bremmer on GZERO World to unpack some of the biggest cases on the docket this year and what’s at stake in some of the major decisions expected to come down next month.
This year’s SCOTUS term comes at a time when approval for the Court is at an all-time low. As of September of 2023, a record 58% of Americans disapproved of how the Court handles its job. That follows multiple ethics scandals involving Associate Justice Clarence Thomas and a string of conservative decisions, including the 2022 Dobbs decision striking down the right to abortion, increasingly out of step with public opinion. With the Court wading into the 2024 election and former President Trump’s immunity claims, it risks being seen by the public as even more partisan and politicized.
“As an American, I want to have a good faith belief in the justices’ approach,” Bazelon says, “After a certain number of cases come out in particular ways, you start to feel like cynicism is realism about the Court."
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week on US public television (check local listings) and online.
Who cares if the Supreme Court justices like each other?
Yale legal scholar and New York Times Magazine staff writer Emily Bazelon wants to have faith in the Supreme Court. "I want to have a good faith belief in the justices' approach to these cases” she tells Ian Bremmer in a new episode of GZERO World. But in a wide-ranging conversation in which Bazelon and Bremmer preview the major cases facing the Supreme Court this spring, Bazelon confesses that the past few years have tested her faith.
“After a certain number of cases come out particular ways, you start to feel like cynicism is realism about the Court."
And Bazelon is not alone. Public faith in the Supreme Court is at record lows, thanks to its rightward tilt and ethical questions surrounding the conduct of Justice Clarence Thomas. And that’s a problem, Bazelon says, not just for America but for the justices themselves. “They all have an incentive to protect the institution, the liberals as well as the conservatives. They don't want to see Americans lose total faith in the Court. That's not good for them and their job security and their collective legacy.”
But do the justices themselves get along? Bazelon couldn’t care less. “I'm personally mystified why they think we should care about that. I don't care whether they can be nice to each other when they're having lunch, whether they're collegial. I care about whether American law is going in a direction that makes sense to most Americans.” But at a time when the country itself could not be more divided, could collegiality in the highest court of the land be just the thing that Americans cling to?
Watch the full interview with Emily Bazelon on GZERO World with Ian Bremmer on US public television beginning this Friday, May 3. Check local listings.
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week on US public television (check local listings) and online.
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- The major Supreme Court decisions to watch for in June - GZERO Media ›
Key Supreme Court decisions; how coronavirus impacts US election
Jon Lieber, managing director for the United States at Eurasia Group, shares his insights on US politics:
How is coronavirus jeopardizing the legitimacy of a 2020 presidential election?
Well, what coronavirus is doing is a lot of states are worrying about people who aren't going to want to come to the polling places in the fall, and they're worried about a shortage of polling workers who are going to want to come out and volunteer to get sick by interacting with a bunch people in person. So, what they're doing is they're looking at making a shift to vote-by-mail. Most states allow some form of absentee balloting today. Five states just automatically mail you a ballot and they don't do any in-person voting. But the challenge here is that a lot of states are unprepared for the sharp increase that's expected. In the last election, 25% of ballots were cast by mail. You may see 50, 60 or even more percent of ballots cast by mail this time, which could overwhelm election administration, which happens at the state level.
If this happens, the loser may have grounds to claim that there was voter fraud, vote suppression, there was something wrong with the counting of the ballots or some of the machines broke down. That could take a challenge all the way to Congress or to the Supreme Court. Making potentially a very messy cycle if a close election. If it's a blowout, less of a concern.
The Supreme Court has been busy recently. What are some of the big decisions that they made?
Well, they allowed a number of unlawful immigrants who were brought here as children to stay. They extended the 1964 Civil Rights Act to sexual orientation and gender identity. They struck down a controversial Louisiana abortion law. And they allowed prosecutors in New York to get access to the president's financial records. There are a number of conservatives who weren't happy with these decisions and are particularly unhappy with John Roberts, a Bush appointee, who is thought to be a conservative, who is the swing vote in some of these cases. Some observers are saying that Roberts is trying to prevent the institution from becoming just another partisan political institution, like Congress, by preventing 5-4 decisions that go one way. However, remember that President Trump has reshaped the lower courts, appointing over 200 judges since he first came into office, filling every circuit court available, the most since Jimmy Carter. That legacy is likely to outlast President Trump and it could outlast Chief Justice John Roberts.