Mother Jones
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Chief Justice John Roberts kicks off his 11th year on the US Supreme Court on Monday, not with accolades for his stewardship of the nation’s highest court, but as the target of GOP presidential candidates who think he’s gone soft for siding with liberals on the big Obamacare decision. But Roberts will have a good chance to redeem himself with his conservative base in the coming term.
Unlike last year, the October 2015 Supreme Court term that starts this week isn’t full of blockbuster cases. There are no abortion or religious freedom cases on the docket yet, although there are some waiting in the wings that will probably make it to the court before the end of the year. In the meantime, several cases driven solely by deep-pocketed conservative legal outfits will provide Roberts with opportunities to reassert his conservative bona fides by potentially slapping down racial preferences in college admissions, weakening union membership, or further undermine voting rights for minorities. He’ll also have a bevy of opportunities to continue his assault on workers’ and consumers’ ability to check corporate misconduct through class actions.
Not everything facing the Roberts’ court this term is political, though. The docket is heavily loaded with criminal justice cases, where ideological differences on the court are less likely to dictate the outcomes—after all, liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor is a former prosecutor. The death penalty makes another strong appearance this term, though not quite as dramatically as this past spring, when the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to lethal injection.
Here are five cases to watch:
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5 Supreme Court Cases that John Roberts Could Use to Win Back Conservatives
