The Supreme Court opens its new term with election disputes in the air but not yet on the docket

WASHINGTON (AP) — Transgender rights, the regulation of “ghost guns” and the death penalty highlight the Supreme Court’s election-season term that begins Monday, with the prospect of the court’s intervention in voting disputes lurking in the background.

The justices are returning to the bench at a time of waning public confidence in the court and calls to limit their terms to 18 years that have wide support, including the backing of Democratic President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the party’s White House nominee.

Whether by design or happenstance, the justices are hearing fewer high-profile cases than they did in recent terms that included far-reaching decisions by the 6-3 conservative majority on presidential immunity, abortion, guns, and affirmative action.

The lighter schedule would allow them to easily add election cases, if those make their way to the high court in the run-up to the Nov. 5 election between Republican Donald Trump and Harris, or its immediate aftermath.

“I think there are legal issues that arise out of the political process. And so, the Supreme Court has to be prepared to respond if that should be necessary,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson told CBS News last month in an interview to her promote new memoir, “Lovely One.”

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