Get ready for the landmark decisions to start rolling in
By Richard Primus | POLITICO
The Supreme Court term that begins this week is set to be a blockbuster. There’s a reason: When Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016, the court hit the pause button on some of the most important issues it was facing. Either because the justices knew they would be deadlocked, or because they preferred not to tackle important questions without a full bench, the court started ducking big cases, and we’ve now been through two cycles with relatively few landmark decisions.
That’s about to end. Once Justice Neil Gorsuch took his seat, the court put one big case after another on the calendar, and the term that starts this week is set up to pack the punch of two to three normal Supreme Court terms. When you factor in the Trump administration’s tendency to provoke constitutional litigation, there’s no telling how explosive the new term might be.