Posted on 12/27/2014 5:36:52 AM PST by HomerBohn
Civil liberty issues dominated the Supreme Court in 2014, a year that included rulings that protected or enhanced free speech, religious and privacy rights but featured few bombshell decisions of the kind that overshadowed recent terms.
But with the justices under increasing pressure to take up the hot-button issue of gay marriage in the New Year, the court’s 2014-15 term is poised to be historic.
In the year’s most high-profile case, the court gave a nod to religious and corporate freedoms as it struck down a key provision of the Affordable Care Act.
The 5-4 decision said that businesses can use religious beliefs to opt out of an Obamacare requirement that employers cover birth control for employees. It was a significant victory for those challenging the constitutionality of President Obama’s healthcare law. And it was the first time the high court has said businesses can hold religious views under federal law.
The plaintiffs — Hobby Lobby, a chain of craft stores with 13,000 full-time employees, and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp., a small Mennonite furniture manufacturer — said they were amenable to providing most of the mandated forms of contraception. But they oppose emergency contraceptives such as the morning-after pill, arguing that life begins at conception and that destroying a fertilized egg in the uterus is tantamount to abortion.
The decision, while significant, was limited to the contraception mandate, with the justices saying that businesses cannot opt out of Obamacare entirely on religious grounds.
In another case that expanded religious freedoms, a divided Supreme Court opened the door to more public prayer at government-sponsored events, ruling that meetings in the town of Greece, N.Y., may begin with a Christian invocation.
Opponents argued the prayers had been overwhelmingly Christian and instead should be replaced by nonsectarian prayers or a moment of silence. But the high court's five conservative-leaning justices agreed the prayers are in keeping with the nation's traditions.
“Legislative prayer lends gravity to public business, reminds lawmakers to transcend petty differences in pursuit of a higher purpose and expresses a common aspiration to a just and peaceful society,” Justice Anthony Kennedy said in writing for the majority.
In perhaps the year’s biggest First Amendment-related case, the Supreme Court struck down the overall limits that wealthy donors can contribute to political campaigns, handing a big victory to anti-regulation conservatives who saw the caps as a serious restriction of free speech rights.
Federal law previously held that, during a two-year election cycle, individuals could not give more than $48,600 to all candidates for federal office and no more than $74,600 to national party committees that make contributions to candidates.
Critics said removing the caps will lead to big-money donors gaining even more influence over elections than they already have, a scenario they say would lead to corruption.
But in their 5-4 ruling in McCutcheon v. the Federal Election Commission, the justices said Americans have the right to contribute the legal maximum — $2,600 — to an unlimited number of candidates for congressional and presidential races, political parties, and political action committees.
Another significant free speech decision was the court’s striking down of a Massachusetts law that set 35-foot buffer zones around abortion clinics, saying it violated the First Amendment rights of protesters.
The unanimous McCullen v. Coakley decision was a victory for anti-abortion activists and even some liberal groups who feared that the law, if upheld, could make it more difficult for striking workers to picket outside their workplaces.
Massachusetts instituted its 2007 buffer zone law after several abortion clinics in the state complained that protesters, activists and others repeatedly were blocking — and sometimes harassing — patients as they entered their facilities.
Some supporters of the law argued that the case wasn’t really about free speech because the ban only limited the location of the speech and wasn’t intended to target specific topics of speech or to silence anyone.
But the justices said that protecting free speech is paramount and that such buffer zones — even if they they only moderately infringe on a person’s right to be heard — are unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court also gave privacy rights in the digital age a big victory, unanimously ruling that police can't search the cellphones of people they arrest without a warrant.
The justices said that because cellphones potentially contain vast amounts of personal information unrelated to a person’s arrest, they should be off-limits to a police search without a warrant.
The case pitted privacy advocates and defense lawyers against law enforcement and the federal government, who argued that cellphone searches immediately after an arrest are vital to ensure evidence isn’t tampered with or destroyed.
Chief Justice John Roberts said the solution for police was “accordingly simple: Get a warrant.”
In another unanimous decision that was a sharp rebuke of the Obama administration, the court said the president exceeded his authority when he appointed three members to the National Labor Relations Board during a congressional recess in 2012.
Presidents can circumvent required Senate approval of nominations if the chamber is in recess, a move Obama deemed necessary because Republicans repeatedly were blocking his nominees to the NLRB.
But the justices said the Constitution’s recess appointments clause gives Congress — not the president — the power to decide when it is in recess, and that there was no recess when Obama acted.
Looking ahead to 2015, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a new Obamacare challenge in a case that threatens subsidies that help millions of low- and middle-income people afford their health insurance premiums.
At issue is the wording of the healthcare law. An appeals court ruled in July that the law’s language specifically limits insurance tax credits to consumers who live in states that have set up their own insurance markets, known as exchanges.
The Obama administration says the law’s intent was that the federal government would step in and run exchanges in states that declined to participate.
Thirty-four states have opted not to create their own exchanges.
The high court also is poised to rule on national gay marriage rights after a series of lower court decisions and high court orders this autumn set the issue on a fast track.
When the justices opened their 2014-15 term in early October, significant cases involving gay marriage were conspicuously absent from the docket. But a month later, a federal appeals court upheld anti-gay marriage laws in four states, making it difficult for the Supreme Court to sidestep the issue much longer.
Advocates on both sides, as well as many states, are eager for the court to settle the issue once and for all, heightening expectations a ruling will come before the court’s term ends in late June.
Gay-marriage opponents say they expect the conservative-leaning bench to rule in their favor, while supporters say legal momentum is on their side.
Just how the nine justices will rule is difficult to say, as the Roberts court has become increasingly unpredictable. But many legal experts say they expect a decision in line with the nation’s growing legal and cultural acceptance of gay marriage.
If obamacare isn't repealed soon, the US will continue its steady decline with no hope of return.
The EXEMPT, unelected, selfserving will decide.
The EXEMPT care about one thing. Themselves, their families
and their staff and their families. [end of story].
prediction 5 - 4. America loses.
Are they actually going to rule on same sex marriage or are they going to kick it back down to lower courts in states where homofascist governors refuse to enforce the enacted laws of their states (thus nullifying the legislative process)?
You may be right. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict a 6-3 victory, or an even greater margin.
The first time around, my gut told me that the Supremes couldn't resist the urge to do something "historic." This time around, they don't want to be attached to this dog. And they have plenty of good excuses now to reject it.
Obamacare is in my view toast. The law is clear and the IRS muddied waters will not prevail.
Queer marriages is another matter. It seems to me to be a matter that is left to the states and not a federal issue. A queer couple married in say Massachusetts is not married in other states. To be married must stay in Massachusetts
> prediction 5 - 4. America loses.
If I were a betting man I’d lay money on it...
I too would love to see two victories on these fronts yet there are four liberals and probably two others or more compromised on the court ... could go 6 - 3 as you say though. Believe Americans are in one of those ‘no hope’ cycles. Prayers to be wrong ....
> The EXEMPT, unelected, selfserving will decide.
The EXEMPT care about one thing. Themselves, their families
and their staff and their families. [end of story].
I think when the SC justices are involved these days the issue has already been decided beforehand by the King. They just have to assume their positions onstage and read their lines to make it look like there was a fight afoot...
Boy you can almost see the dungeons and Satanic altars they have setup in their basements just looking at their photos...
Lusty lesbians and one scrawny old chicken who can’t play with the big girls. With the exception of the Lady Bird, the other two appear well nourished to the point of obesity.
To look upon a gaggle of hogs like these one must wonder as to what’s next if another asshat gets elected president and continues to drastic screwup that was Obozo’s term at bat.
Anthony Kennedy needs to be a subject of our prayers. Actually, Alito and Roberts too. These three refused to join Scalia and Thomas in granting a stay to Florida regarding biblical marriage.
We are galloping toward Gomorrah. We need a spiritual awakening.
Don’t expect much. Note tagline.
The august body which made it legal to murder innocent children IN their mother’s womb will have no problem legalizing sodomite marriage.
I don’t want to look.
Just as the Founding Fathers envisioned, I'm sure. /s
The Supreme Court has become as corrupted as the rest of the government.
Amen ...
“Just as the Founding Fathers envisioned, I’m sure. /s”
The authors of the Constitution did not envision the size or intrusiveness of today’s federal government, much less judicial review function the Supremes assumed for themselves in the 1803 Marbury v. Madison ruling.
Jefferson’s comments on Marbury v. Madison:
“You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps.... Their power [is] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves.”
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