Big battles await Supreme Court

? Sometimes the work of the Supreme Court befits the court’s image as a stolid place. Quiet, plodding, even boring.

Not this year.

With the justices on their midwinter break and about half the term behind them, they already have signed off on a vast rewrite of the laws that govern money in politics. They surprised even close observers of the court by jumping headlong into disputes over the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools and how post Sept. 11-America deals with terrorism and security.

There are cases testing the limits of presidential secrecy and of civil rights protections for the disabled. One upcoming case revisits the tricky balance between free speech and the need to protect children from Internet smut.

Another case looks at patient rights to sue their health maintenance organizations. Cases now awaiting rulings include a church-state fight over scholarships for religious education, a look at the role of partisan politics in legislative redistricting and a privacy case about photos of the late Vince Foster, a former Clinton White House aide.

“There’s something for everybody in the term,” Pepperdine University constitutional law professor Douglas Kmiec said. “There are cases that are topical around the water cooler and there are cases that are significant in law school classrooms and everywhere in between.”

The Pledge of Allegiance case has grabbed the biggest headlines so far. Oral arguments are at the end of March.

A California atheist is challenging the constitutionality of the words “under God” that are part of the oath recited by generations of schoolchildren. A lower court agreed the phrase makes the pledge unconstitutional when led by a teacher in a public school classroom.

After batting away several cases that arose from the fight against terrorism, the court recently agreed to hear two major challenges to the Bush administration’s treatment of terrorism suspects. The court seems poised to add even a third terrorism case to its docket this spring, with rulings expected by July.

Other nations, including U.S. allies, are closely watching a case testing the legal rights of more than 650 foreigners held in open-ended military custody at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Most of the detainees were picked up in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The U.S. government claims it may hold them until hostilities are over or until the military decides to try or release them.

A broader case questions the treatment of an American citizen captured on an Afghan battlefield and now held indefinitely in a military brig, without charges or trial.