LEGAL/SUPREME COURT: “The Supreme Court begins a new term Monday [10-2-17] with a conservative majority and a docket filled with longtime conservative goals to go with it, with cases that could curtail the power of organized labor, expand religious exceptions to legal obligations and validate tougher scrutiny of voter rolls.
As he steered the court through a yearlong eight-member limbo, before Justice Neil Gorsuch took the bench in April, Chief Justice John Roberts crafted a series of centrist rulings, often in controversial cases, that attracted votes from conservatives and liberals alike.
The question now is whether the restraint of the past year reflects a new consensus within the court’s ideological center or was a temporary accommodation to the 4-to-4 partisan split left by Justice Antonin Scalia’s death…
So far, the centrist bloc that coalesced around the chief justice—including Justices Kennedy, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan —has remained influential even after the arrival of Justice Gorsuch toward the end of last term.
Justice Kennedy, a maverick conservative, for years has held an outsize influence, joining his right-leaning colleagues to expand access to firearms and roll back campaign-finance regulations while siding with liberals to expand gay rights and limit the death penalty.”
-Jess Bravin, “Supreme Court Set to Ponder Conservative Priorities,” The Wall Street Journal online, Oct. 1, 2017 08:00am