Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 1, 1995 TAG: 9510020112
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD CARELLI ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
Adding to the justices' lengthening docket, the Clinton administration is seeking high court endorsement of its effort to shatter the 156-year-old tradition of excluding women from Virginia Military Institute.
The high court completed one of its most conservative terms in 40 years last June by moving aggressively to the right in dramatic rulings on affirmative action, voting rights, school desegregation, religion and privacy.
It remains to be seen when the justices reconvene Monday whether the majority that fashioned those conservative victories, most often by 5-4 votes, will hold together. Also unknown is whether new cases will provide the conservative bloc with the opportunity to continue this rightward shift.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist leads the court's conservative bloc. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas are its most enthusiastic members.
In key cases last term, they were joined by Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, who are considered more moderate conservatives.
Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer most often were united in dissent.
``Last term's results lead me to approach the coming term with some considerable degree of concern and anxiety,'' said Steven Shapiro, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union.
``Last year, the [court's] moderate middle collapsed. The question of whether that trend will continue ... bears watching,'' he said.
Clint Bolick, legal director of the conservative Institute for Justice, thinks the court is ready for a less-divisive term.
``There are no great overriding themes to the new term yet,'' Bolick said. ``What we'll probably see are shifting majorities rather than the fairly stark division we saw last term.''
The justices already have committed themselves to deciding 42 cases by next June. They will at least double that decision docket as they sort through thousands of appeals - including the VMI case - this fall and winter.
The most closely watched controversy already granted review is being called a watershed for gay rights.
At issue is whether Colorado voters may forbid their legislature and every community within the state from enacting laws and ordinances designed to protect homosexuals from discrimination.
The Colorado Supreme Court struck down that 1992 amendment to the state constitution, ruling it denied homosexuals an equal voice in government.
The nation's highest court displayed what gay-rights advocate Matt Coles called open hostility toward homosexuals when it upheld Georgia's anti-sodomy law in 1986.
``Lower federal courts picked up on that tone, he said. ``The tone of the court's ruling this term may be as important as what it says about this denial of political access.''
Last term, the court jeopardized political gains made by minority candidates from Congress to City Hall by ruling in a Georgia case that election districts drawn mainly to boost black voters' electoral clout must be presumed to be unlawful.
The legal and political impact of that ruling may become clearer this term, after the court decides voting-rights disputes focusing on congressional redistricting efforts in North Carolina and Texas.
The court could use the two cases to tell the nation's judges how to go about determining whether race has been a predominant factor. The justices also might clarify when racial considerations in redistricting can be deemed valid remedies for past bias.
Political redistricting could also be affected by how the justices rule on a challenge to the 1990 census.
The 1990 census was cause for dispute even before it began, and has been argued over in numerous courts for years.
The justices likely will focus their decision on a narrow, technical issue of how the courts untangle this legal jumble.
But their ruling may determine whether the government has to adjust the census figures to make up missing some 5 million people, most of them minorities.
Likewise, the court's refereeing of a high-stakes battle from Florida over regulation of gambling on Indian reservations is likely to yield a narrow ruling with broad ramifications.
At issue is federal judges' authority to oversee negotiations between tribes and state officials about starting such gambling operations, and whether the Seminole tribe can sue the state to press allegations of bad-faith negotiations.
The court has also agreed to decide:
Whether the federal government must reimburse two chemical firms the $31 million they paid to settle health claims by Vietnam veterans exposed to the defoliant Agent Orange. Lower courts said no reimbursement is necessary because federal law would have protected the companies from liability.
What are the constitutional bounds of punitive-damage awards to punish and deter misconduct in product-liability lawsuits. At issue is a $2 million award to an Alabama man who sued over a $4,000 flaw in his luxury car.
Whether states may try to promote sobriety by banning price advertising for liquor. A lower court upheld such a Rhode Island ban.
by CNB