The New Yorker:

The Justices are heading into a busy, contentious season. The mood seems brittle.

By Amy Davidson Sorkin

In one sense, it is impossible to give an overview of what to expect from the Supreme Court in the New Year, because the agenda depends so much on what President Donald Trump will do. And he might try almost anything. A little more than a week ago, Nicolás Maduro was serving as President of Venezuela; now he and his wife, Cilia Flores, are in the Metropolitan Detention Center, in Brooklyn. The legal cases associated with this episode will be legion, ranging from the drug and weapons charges against the couple (to which they have pleaded not guilty) and their claims to be prisoners of war to matters such as boarding and seizing oil tankers. And just two days after Maduro was arraigned before a federal judge, the issue of how the Constitution’s supremacy clause might limit the state of Minnesota from prosecuting a federal ice agent suddenly became more urgent.

Those cases will take time; even without them, though, the Court is heading into a busy, contentious season, after something of a lull over the holidays. In the first few months of the term, which began in October, the Justices worked through an “emergency docket” that included many stays or restraining orders related to Trump’s often outrageous executive actions, involving, for example, deportations. In several instances, the Justices dodged the central legal issue and sent matters back to the lower courts; some may be coming right back at them in the next months. They also heard major cases—on tariffs, on the President’s ability to fire the heads of independent agencies, on the constitutionality of a section of the Voting Rights Act—on which they could rule at any time, although it may take them until the summer. First, though, there are more oral arguments ahead, beginning on Monday, January 12th, with a case about whether Louisiana parishes can sue oil companies for damages to the state’s coastline. 

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