华盛顿——堕胎。枪。宗教。特朗普强化的保守派多数派正通过迅速涉足几十年来一直是右翼目标的高调社会问题，在最高法院发挥作用。
多年来，包括一些法官在内的沮丧的保守派指责一个由大多数共和党人任命的法院走得不够远，或者忽略了他们认为需要法院关注的问题。
现在，有三位前总统的任命唐纳德·特朗普在九人法庭上，任期更长的保守派大法官塞缪尔·阿利托和克拉伦斯·托马斯即使没有首席大法官约翰·罗伯茨的投票，也能凑齐五名大法官的多数票。
特朗普任命的法官代表着“不仅是意识形态的转变，也是权力的转变。罗伯茨右边有五名法官，”波士顿学院法学教授肯特·格林菲尔德说。"这意味着酋长不再控制法庭了。"
在大法官艾米·科尼·巴雷特(Amy Coney Barrett)加入法院以来的七个月里，保守派多数派发布了一系列有利于宗教崇拜者的命令，这些人挑战了因新冠肺炎而施加的限制。
巴雷特在几个案例中提供了第五票。罗伯茨一直不愿意猜测这些案件中的民选官员，在她9月去世之前，金斯伯格也投票维持对宗教服务的限制。
也许更重要的是文化战争问题，法院很可能会在2022年春季国会中期选举之前就此做出裁决选举南法官们周一宣布，他们将听取一个堕胎案件，这可能会破坏近50年来的堕胎权利裁决，并于上月同意决定美国人是否有宪法权利在公共场所携带枪支进行自卫。
等待是对大学录取中平权行动的直接挑战，在一个涉及哈佛的案件中，该案件要求法院推翻2003年的一项裁决，即支持种族是录取中允许的因素。下一届法庭可能会在漫长的夏季休庭前投票审理此案。
审理案件的决定只需要四票，并不能保证结果。但特别是在枪支和堕胎问题上，法院以不太保守的阵容放弃了几次介入的机会。
托马斯，现任任期最长的法官，长期以来一直抱怨他的同事在这些问题上的胆怯。近30年来，他一直呼吁法院推翻里程碑式的罗伊诉韦德案的裁决，该裁决将堕胎权扩大到全国。1992年，在他的第一个任期内，他是推翻罗伊案的四名法官之一。
相反，完全由共和党总统任命的法官组成的五人多数重申了对寻求堕胎的妇女的宪法保护。
在枪支问题上，托马斯哀叹他的同事们将第二修正案“持有和携带武器的权利”视为二等权利，巴雷特本人在担任上诉法院法官时就使用了这个短语。
法院向右翼的转变源于两次过早死亡和一次关键的退休。
这始于五年前，当时安东宁·斯卡利亚法官突然去世，参议院共和党人拒绝就巴拉克·奥巴马总统提名梅里克·加兰接替斯卡利亚的席位采取行动。如果现任司法部长加兰被确认，这将是50年来民主党总统第一次任命法院的多数席位。
相反，这个席位仍然是空的，特朗普赢得了总统职位，震惊了世界，尼尔·戈鲁奇法官于2017年4月加入法院。
一年后，法院的“摇摆投票”，法官安东尼肯尼迪，退休和特朗普把正义布雷特·卡瓦诺在他的座位上。
肯尼迪的退休基本上把罗伯茨置于法院意识形态的中心，尽管是右倾的，首席大法官抵制了公众对法院仅仅是一个政治机构的看法。他与自由派法官一起投票支持奥巴马时代的医疗保健法，并否决了路易斯安那州的堕胎法规。
但金斯伯格的去世，导致巴雷特在2020年选举前几天得到确认，结束了罗伯茨控制法院在两个方向上走多远的短暂时期。
特朗普曾承诺提名“反堕胎法官”，并在2016年预测，随着三次任命，“罗伊将不复存在。”
司法危机网络(Judicial Crisis Network)的凯莉·塞韦里诺(Carrie Severino)花费数千万美元支持确认特朗普任命的三名法官，她说，法官们没有回避重大问题。
“让特朗普的提名者上场产生了真正的影响。托马斯曾经的法律助理塞韦里诺说:“看到法院的绝大多数人致力于解释宪法，这很令人兴奋。”。
自由派团体对事态的转变感到震惊，尤其是法院对堕胎案的干预。
推动最高法院扩大的组织“夺回最高法院”在给乔·拜登总统的信中说，最近的事态发展是共和党努力保持斯卡利亚席位开放，然后迅速填补金斯伯格席位的可预见结果。
信中写道:“这一切都不奇怪:最高法院被米奇·麦康奈尔窃取——其窃取是由联邦主义者协会设计的——明确推翻罗伊案并限制妇女权利。”
拜登的最高法院改革委员会周三举行首次会议。它应该在六个月后回来报告。
金斯伯格自己也意识到特朗普的当选可能会带来什么。在2016年7月接受美联社采访时，她相信民主党提名人希拉里·克林顿将成为总统，并获得几项最高法院的任命。
但有人问金斯伯格，如果特朗普赢了，会发生什么?
“我不想考虑这种可能性，但如果这是应该的，那么一切都是可以争取的，”她说。
Conservatives push big issues to fore at Supreme Court
WASHINGTON -- Abortion. Guns. Religion. A Trump-fortified conservative majority is making its presence felt at the Supreme Court by quickly wading into high-profile social issues that have been a goal of the right for decades.
For years, frustrated conservatives, including some justices, chided a court with a majority of Republican appointees for not going far enough or passing on issues they thought demanded the court's attention.
Now, with three appointees of former PresidentDonald Trumpon the nine-member court, longer-serving conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas can cobble together five-justice majorities even without the vote of Chief Justice John Roberts.
The Trump-appointed justices represent “not only a shift of ideology but a shift of power. There are five justices to right of Roberts,” said Boston College law professor Kent Greenfield. “What that means is that the chief is not in control of the court anymore.”
In the seven months since Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court, conservative majorities have issued a series of orders in favor of religious worshippers who had challenged restrictions imposed because of COVID-19.
Barrett provided the fifth vote in several cases. Roberts has been unwilling to second guess elected officials in these cases and, prior to her death in September, Ginsburg also had voted to keep the restrictions on religious services in place.
Perhaps even more significant are the culture war issues that the court will, in all likelihood, rule on in the spring of 2022, in the run up to the congressional midtermelections. The justices announced Monday that they will hear an abortion case that could undermine nearly 50 years of abortion rights rulings and agreed last month to decide whether Americans have a constitutional right to carry guns in public for self-defense.
Waiting in the wings is a direct challenge to affirmative action in college admissions, in a case, involving Harvard, that calls on the court to reverse a 2003 ruling upholding race as a permissible factor in admissions. A vote to hear that case next term could come before the court takes its long summer break.
A decision to hear a case takes just four votes and is no guarantee of its outcome. But on guns and abortion in particular, the court with a less-conservative lineup passed up several opportunities to wade in.
Thomas, the longest-serving current justice, has long complained about his colleagues' timidity on these topics. For nearly 30 years, he has called on the court to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that extended abortion rights across the country. He was one of four justices who would have overturned Roe in 1992, in his first term on the court.
Instead, a five-member majority composed entirely of justices appointed by Republican presidents reaffirmed constitutional protections for women seeking abortions.
On guns, Thomas has lamented that his colleagues treat the Second Amendment “right to keep and bear arms” as a second-class right, a phrase that Barrett herself used when she was an appeals court judge.
The court's shift to the right grows out of two untimely deaths and one crucial retirement.
It began five years ago, when Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly and Senate Republicans refused to act on President Barack Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to take Scalia's seat. Had Garland, now the attorney general, been confirmed, it would have given the court a majority appointed by Democratic presidents for the first time in 50 years.
Instead, the seat remained empty, Trump shocked the world by winning the presidency and Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the court in April 2017.
A year later the court's “swing vote,” Justice Anthony Kennedy, retired and Trump put JusticeBrett Kavanaughin his seat.
Kennedy's retirement essentially put Roberts at the ideological, though right-leaning, center of the court, and the chief justice has resisted public perceptions of the court as merely a political institution. He has voted with the liberal justices to uphold the Obama era health care law and strike down a Louisiana abortion regulation.
But Ginsburg's death, which led to Barrett's confirmation days before the 2020 election, ended a brief period in which Roberts controlled how far the court would go in either direction.
Trump had pledged to nominate “pro-life justices” and predicted back in 2016 that with three appointments, “Roe would be gone.”
Carrie Severino, whose Judicial Crisis Network spent tens of millions of dollars in support of confirming the three Trump appointees, said the justices have not shied away from big issues.
“Having Trump’s nominees on the court has made a real impact. It’s exciting to see a solid majority of the court committed to interpreting the Constitution as it’s written,” said Severino, a onetime law clerk for Thomas.
Liberal groups are alarmed at the turn of events generally and the court's intervention in the abortion case in particular.
Take Back the Court, a group pushing for Supreme Court expansion, said in a letter it is sending to President Joe Biden that the recent developments are a predictable result of Republican efforts to keep Scalia's seat open, then fill Ginsburg's quickly.
“None of this is a surprise: The Supreme Court was stolen by Mitch McConnell — and its theft designed by the Federalist Society — explicitly to overturn Roe and restrict women’s rights,” the letter reads.
Biden's commission on Supreme Court reform is holding its first meeting Wednesday. It's supposed to report back in six months.
Ginsburg herself recognized what might come to pass with Trump's election. In an interview with The Associated Press in July 2016, she was confident that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton would become president and have several Supreme Court appointments.
But what, Ginsburg was asked, would happen if Trump were to win?
“I don’t want to think about that possibility, but if it should be, then everything is up for grabs,” she said.
