On the final month of its annual term, the United States Supreme Court has several landmark cases on its docket.
Between now and late June, the Supreme Court will hand down more than two dozen decisions on matters involving politics, civil rights, foreign policy, freedom of speech, and the environment. Several of these cases have been pending for months, suggesting the nine justices have been sharply divided on issues.
In a potentially historic ruling, the federal court will decide whether same-sex couples have a legal right to marry nationwide, as protected by the Constitution, rather than leaving the decision to the state courts. Same-sex couples, some of whom are raising children, say that as a matter of equal rights, states may not deny them a marriage license. In their defense of laws banning gay marriage, the states of Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee say the decision should be left to them and their voters.
The ruling will culminate a two-decade legal and political fight for nationwide marriage equality.
Another much-anticipated decision has to do with Obamacare—whether President Barack Obama’s program will continue to subsidize health insurance for low- and middle-income families who buy coverage in the 36 states that do not have a private official insurance exchange, instead using the federal version.
The Affordable Care Act, colloquially known as Obamacare and signed into law in 2010, said Americans must have health insurance. The law also promised to help pay part of the cost for low- and middle-income people. One clause said these subsidies go for insurance bought through an “exchange established by the state,” but only 14 states established an exchange of their own. A small conservative group sued in King v. Burwell, alleging that subsidies in the 36 states using the federal exchange are illegal. Supporters of the law say Congress clearly envisioned that subsidies would be offered in all states.
If the court rules against the Obama administration, about 8.6 million people could lose their subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.
Another minor case (Zivotofsky vs. Kerry) involving the passport of a 12-year-old American boy born in Jerusalem raised the major question of whether Congress or the President has the final world on foreign policy. In 2002, Congress passed a law giving US parents a right to have “Israel” listed as the birthplace for a child born in Jerusalem. However, Presidents George W. Bush and Obama refused to abide by it, saying that both Israelis and Palestinians claim the city as their capital and that the law interferes with a president’s “exclusive authority to recognize foreign states” and handle sensitive matters of foreign policy.
In an important civil rights case, the high Court will also decide the reach of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which forbids refusing to sell or rent to people because of their race, religion, sex or national origin. Judges have said it forbids more than blatant acts of bias, but also zoning, lending rules and housing policies which have a discriminatory effect based on race. However, conservatives of the court are skeptical of bias claims based on statistics.
In Michigan vs. EPA, coal and power industries say that nearly $10 billion a year required by The Environmental Protection Agency—which is set to force power plants to sharply reduce emissions of mercury, arsenic and other hazardous air pollutants—is too high. The case offers a test of whether the high court will uphold the Obama administration’s most ambitious clean air rules, including proposed climate change standards.
The justices are also sharply split on how states such as Oklahoma carry out death penalty executions. They will decide whether prison authorities, who lack access to sodium thiopental (a lethal injection drug), may use a less effective sedative called midazolam for executions. The sedative has been blamed in the past for several botched executions.
In Ohio v. Clark, the court must decide whether a child abuse suspect can block the trial testimony of a preschool teacher who reported what a 3-year-old told her. Usually, young children are shielded from testifying. But the 6th Amendment gives the accused the right to be “confronted with the witnesses against him.” The court has struggled to decide when others, like a teacher, can testify in place of the witness to a crime. The case, first heard in March, could have a far-reaching effect.
( With reports from Los Angeles Times)
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Midweek May 27- June 3, 2015 Sec. A pg.1)
