Fasten your seatbelts

Something very unusual happened at the nation’s highest Court this year. The justices adjourned for their summer vacation and liberals were left feeling pretty good about the just-completed Supreme Court term. Marriage discrimination is dead, and Obamacare is alive. America’s civil rights laws were left largely intact, and state election laws were not cast into turmoil.

As we’ve explained, many of these outcomes most likely stem from conservative overreach — litigants looking to disrupt progressive legislation brought long shot cases because they were encouraged by the Roberts Court’s record of conservatism and decided to “press their luck.”

In any event, it is unlikely that liberals will feel the same way about the next Supreme Court term as they do about this recently completed one. Based on two major cases that the Court has already agreed to hear, and a third that is likely to be added to the Court’s docket this fall, next term is shaping up to be a much more conventional term rife with longtime conservative boogie men waiting to be slain by the Court’s right flank.