The Supreme Court's likely rulings in its new term are "looming disasters" for voting laws and LGBTQ issues — but also pose a mystery, wrote Vox legal correspondent Ian Millhiser in an analysis Monday.
The mystery, writes Millhiser, is whether the conservative-majority court will strike down President Donald Trump's controversial tariffs regimen. The writer points out that the court had struck down several Biden policies on the basis that they were of "enormous economic and political significance."
"The tariffs are clearly illegal under a doctrine the Republican justices used to halt many of President Joe Biden’s policies," he writes.
The two disasters center on several cases relating to voting laws and LGBTQ issues.
The conservative justices are expected to repeal laws against racial gerrymandering in the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and loosen campaign finance laws, writes Millhiser.
Repealing racial gerrymandering laws, he writes, would "devastate Black representation in red states" and "supercharge Trump’s efforts to gerrymander Congress to lock the GOP into power," while loosening laws on campaign finance would "permit wealthy donors to give tens of thousands of dollars directly to candidates."
He adds that the justices are also expected to repeal the ban on so-called "conversion therapy" and uphold state laws requiring high school athletes to play on teams aligning with their sex assigned at birth.
Millhiser notes that the American Psychological Association says that conversion therapy “‘puts individuals at a significant risk of harm’ and is not effective in changing a person’s gender identity or sexual orientation,"' and adds that "trans advocates face a difficult uphill climb" regarding sports teams and gender identity.
He writes that the cases are one of a number that will be heard by the justices, with potentially huge ramifications for America.
The "2025–’26 term is already shaping up to be extraordinarily consequential," he writes.
