Understaffed SCOTUS Facing Election Uncertainty A ‘Doomsday Scenario’

The Supreme Court begins a new term this week, still with the vacancy left by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February. A Republican Senate majority has refused to hold hearings to fill the Court’s vacancy, and with the November election looming legal observers fear for the worst possible situation: a repeat of the 2000 election battle. “That is the doomsday scenario in some respects of having an eight-member court,” Carter G. Phillips, a lawyer with Sidley Austin, told the New York Times. Were the Supreme Court to deadlock, it would leave in place a lower court ruling and remove the Court as the final arbiter of federal law. Even barring an election SNAFU, the Court’s docket this term will be closely-followed, as the justices tackle issues on race, religion, and immigration, all while attempting to avoid ending in 4-4 deadlocks. “This term promises to be the most unpredictable one in many, many years,” said Neal K. Katyal, a former acting U.S. solicitor general with the Obama administration, now with Hogan Lovells.