Issues For The Supreme Court

THE NEW TERM'S DOCKET

The new Supreme Court term, which opens today, has no high-profile cases to
match last session's tangles over partial birth abortion, gays in the Boy
Scouts and organized prayer at high school football games.

But even shorn of the Microsoft case, this season will not lack for
suspense or importance. The court's docket includes cases that, depending
on their outcome, could significantly bolster or weaken environmental
protection, federal civil rights, freedom of the press and the Fourth
Amendment's shield against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Once again, a prime battleground will be the constitutional allocation of
power - between the federal government and the states, and between Congress
and federal regulatory agencies.

Last term, the court lengthened its string of regrettable 5-to-4 decisions
trimming federal authority by striking down portions of the Violence
Against Women Act and the federal law barring age discrimination in
employment. A case to be heard next week tests whether the majority's
constricted view of federal power extends to shielding states from lawsuits
brought by their public employees under the Americans With Disabilities
Act. In another big federalism case with implications for the environment,
the court will consider whether Congress exceeded its Commerce Clause
powers by allowing regulation of small, intrastate wetlands to protect the
habitats of migratory birds.

This term the court will also weigh a challenge to the authority of the
Environmental Protection Agency to set national standards for air
pollutants. The justices should resist this invitation to disrupt the
modern regulatory system by overturning Congress's broad delegation of
authority to the E.P.A. or otherwise diluting the agency's power to set
"uncompromising" health-based standards.

Tomorrow, the court begins the term's review of Fourth Amendment principles
with an Indianapolis case involving the use of police checkpoints and
drug-sniffing dogs to check motorists for illicit drugs.

The court should view these law enforcement stops as an overly aggressive
leap from the sobriety checkpoints it has previously approved to remove an
immediate safety hazard.

Then, on Wednesday, the court will consider the outrageous privacy
violation committed against pregnant women who were selectively tested for
cocaine use while seeking prenatal care at a South Carolina hospital, and
subsequently arrested or threatened with arrest.

Amicus briefs from leading medical and health groups caution that such
punitive policies will drive women away from critically needed prenatal
care and treatment programs.

Later this term, the court will confront a major media case. At issue is
the liability of a Pennsylvania radio station under the federal wiretap
statute for broadcasting an illegally taped cell phone conversation between
two union officials.

No one accuses the station of involvement in the taping, which was done by
an anonymous third party.

Should the court override the station's First Amendment privilege here, the
chilling impact on newsgathering cannot be overstated, much as The Times
intends to argue in an amicus brief.