Will Supreme Court Sidestep Controversy in 2019?

News Supreme Court reporter Greg's store in our DC Studios. Greg, It seems as if the Court has been trying to avoid contentious issues since the appointment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Will that become more difficult on January four, when the justices meet to consider new cases for April It will junr right. The Court seems to have been trying to take a low profile over the last few months, but there are a spate of cases that are going to be right in front of them when they come back.

In Jeanne Weary that are going to make that very hard to keep keep up. The first one is a case or two of the first ones that are going to be there are a case involving partisan jerrymandering. That's the the issue of voting maps that are drawn to maximize the the advantages of the party in power. Uh, it's possible the court, very likely the court will take that up, and possible the courts conservatives will say once and for all that those sorts of maps cannot be

challenged in court. And then there's the issue of the federal law that bars job discrimination, and lower courts are divided as to whether people who are discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity are protected under that law. Uh, there are several appeals that are gonna be waiting for the court when they come back, and there's again an excellent chance the Court will agree

to take those issues up. Do you see more of the conservative justices, including Kavanaugh, trying to t up controversial cases that might might advance a conservative agenda? Certainly with the three established conservatives on the court, Thomas, Alito and Gorstch Kavanaugh is a really interesting case because we're still seeing what kind of justice he is going to be. Like.

Up until a couple of weeks ago, I would have said to you, so far, Justice Kavanaugh has seemed to be a little more like Chief Justice Roberts in that he wants the court to move slowly. But there was UH an emergency application filed by the Trump administration recently having to do with restricting where people could claim asylum

along the Mexican border. The Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the liberals to reject the administration's emergency application UH, and Justice Kavanaugh joined with the conservatives, saying, we would we would have voted to let the Trump administration require that any asylum applications be made at ports of entry. So we're we're seeing that Justice Cavana to be starting to show some some different colors than we saw from him in the first few months. And at the conference

on January eleventh, there are also some controversial cases coming. Yeah, so this will be the second private conference that they

have coming back in the new year. UH to two big issues there too of many significant issues, but the two biggest ones I highlight are one the Trump administration trying to let the president resend the DACA policy, that's the fird deportation policy for UH young immigrants who came here as children illegally UM and the second appeal that involves the Trump administration's efforts to largely ban transgender people from serving in the military. Both those cases will before

the Court be before the court in both cases. It's possible the Court will duck those fights and not take up the Trump administration appeals. But again, it's gonna be hard for them to avoid them, particularly when you have the federal government saying this is a really important issue

and we think you need to decide it. Now. What's the latest on that mysterious filing that everyone's been talking about that appears to ask the Supreme Court to intervene for the first time in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the election. Yet right now we're just waiting for

the court to act. So the Chief Justice John Roberts has temporarily UH blocked a lower court order that imposed finds on a mystery company H for not UH it's owned by an an unidentified country, UH finds imposed for not complying with a grand jury subpoena. Almost all the documents in the case are undersealed, so we don't know a whole lot. There are strong indications that it does involve Robert Mueller, but beyond that, it's it's hard to

speculate on on exactly what's involved. But we are waiting for the Supreme Court to do something that uh, potentially will affect the Muller probe for the first time. Now. A new movie came out over the weekend, the holiday weekend about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. What's her prognosis after undergoing lung surgery and the fall she had a few months ago. She's an eight five year old woman, and so you know that that grain of salt. But but um,

it appears to be good. There's no Uh. All the information we've received from the court is that there's no sign that the disease, the masses that were found on um on her lung, there's no sign that those have spread anywhere else. She was released from the hospital on Christmas Day, UM, and every indication is that she will be on the bench when the court returns next week. You wrote a story about how her her medical condition

has led some to speculate on both sides. Yeah, this is the you know, the greatest nightmare for liberals and uh and potentially an amazing opportunity for conservatives if either she or some other liberal justice. Keep in mind Stephen

Briars also eighty years old. If either the word to have to step down, we would potentially move away from this world where John Roberts is in the middle of the court and holding the court back and limiting what the Court does, to a world where John Roberts's vote might not matter because Donald Trump could appoint a fifth hardcore conservative to the Court, and then we could see some real dramatic changes in American law. Greg you know,

John Roberts is the chief. I know his vote counts as just as much as the other justices or the other justices votes counts just as much as his. But is there any more pull that he has or pushed because he's the chief? Can he twist a few arms?

Certainly he can try. There are subtle ways. He does have the power to assign opinions when he's in the majority, and that's potentially a very important power because if you have a justice who wants to go further in a particular case, and John Roberts wants to issue a narrow ruling, uh, he can assign himself the opinion and make sure that the language of it is pretty limited. So it's potentially important, but at the end of the day, Uh, he certainly

is a conservative justice. Now, there is a big argument coming up in February that we've been talking about regarding the census. So you have about a minute here to tell us about that. Okay, this is the case, a controversy over the addition of a citizenship question to the census, and people who are opposed to it, UH say it's going to depress depressed participation, UH and make it less likely that that heavily Hispanic and often democratic areas will

be counted in the census. UH. And the issue is what sort of evidence can be used in the trial to consider whether the administration can put that that question on the next census. Uh. The Supreme Court has interviewed, intervened, excuse me, in a couple uh incremental ways before this this argument. Now in late February, they're going to hear arguments UH in a way that will potentially determine whether that question can be on the next census. All right,

we'll be looking forward to that. That's Bloomberg News Supreme Court reporter Greg Store. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law podcast. You can subscribe and Listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg