USA TODAY
WASHINGTON – For months, the Supreme Court appeared to rise above partisan strife – becoming a place where rancor could be quieted by compromise. But as is often the case at the nation s highest court, the justices saved their fireworks for the end.
With a string of unanimous or near-unanimous decisions, often decided on narrow grounds, the court s nine-month term that wrapped up last week initially upended expectations about how its new 6-3 conservative majority would handle pressing disputes about religious freedom, the Fourth Amendment and the Affordable Care Act.
Then, in its final two opinions, the court s six conservatives held together against its three liberals to impose curbs on the 1965 Voting Rights Act when voting access has become a political flashpoint and opened a debate about whether campaign disclosure requirements could be subjected to legal challenges.
A Supreme Court, Transformed
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