Profanity on television, police use of GPS without a warrant, and the status of Jerusalem on passports are grist for the new US Supreme Court session opening today, but the main event will be US President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare reform.
The nine justices on the highest court in the land already have 50 cases on the table for the new session, which runs until the end of June next year.
The court has dealt with up to 75 cases in past sessions, so the extra space could be interpreted as the court leaving extra room for the sweeping healthcare reform that Obama championed and signed into law in early last year.
Ilya Shapiro, an expert on the court at the Cato Institute, in Washington, described healthcare as “the so-called elephant in the room,” overshadowing all other cases.
“This is definitely the issue of this term,” said Michael Carvin, a leading constitutional lawyer for the Jones Day firm in the US capital and who has argued cases in the court.
“It could be the term of the century or at least of the decade,” he said.
The healthcare legislation extended coverage to an extra 32 million people and fulfilled decades of Democratic dreams of social reform, but was fiercely contested by Republicans. The divisive policy has resurfaced as a key issue in the early stages of the campaign ahead of next year’s US presidential election.
On Wednesday, the Obama administration asked the court to decide whether the law is constitutional, attacking an appeals court ruling in August that struck down a central provision that would require all Americans to have health insurance by 2014.
The justices, confronted with contradictory lower court rulings, have received three other appeals, including one by a group of 28 US states seeking a complete overhaul of the law.
In all likelihood, the justices will hand down a decision in June.
“This will be decided before the election” in November next year, said Carvin, adding that it will inevitably become a campaign issue.
“Regardless what the decision is, it’s going to be one of the most dramatic decisions in the history of constitutional law, because the court will have to decide what the limits are on [the US] Congress’s power,” said Timothy Sandefur, a lawyer at the Pacific Legal Foundation.
The Supreme Court could also take up other hot issues, such as gay marriage and state laws clamping down on immigration.
They are politically very significant because they involve “the power of the states against the power of the national government,” said Elizabeth Papez, a constitutional law specialist.
The Supreme Court is also expected to weigh in on the definition of “indecency” on television in a case that concerns the appearance of bare bottoms in a TV series and the use of profane language on live shows.
The court will also examine a request from the Obama administration to allow police to track suspects using GPS satellite technology without a judicial warrant.
The judgment is seen as a key test of the US fourth amendment after a man sentenced for drug dealing on evidence obtained using GPS without a warrant was annulled after it was deemed to have violated his rights.
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