Conservative Justices

The Supreme Court's conservative leaders on Wednesday renewed their attack on the government's use of racial preferences in awarding contracts. For two hours, the justices vigorously debated the constitutionality of affirmative action in the awarding of radio and television licenses. Since 1973, the Federal Communications Commission has given special preference to applicants for new broadcast licenses if their stations are to be owned or managed by blacks, Latinos, Asians, Eskimos or Indians.

The Supreme Court, on the opening day of its term, announced Monday that it would decide whether a city can ban most signs and billboards within its borders, including a homeowner's political protest displayed in her front yard. The case, which arose in an affluent suburb of St. Louis, raises a potentially broad-reaching First Amendment question that has split the court for more than a decade.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, whose bruising confirmation fight marked a low point of the first Bush administration, is emerging as an honored legal star of the new Bush administration. President Bush's three top appointees at the Justice Department--Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, Deputy Atty. Gen.-designate Larry Thompson and Solicitor General-designate Theodore B. Olson--are close friends of the 52-year-old justice.

It's apparently not easy being Justice Antonin Scalia. Seeing himself as a lonely voice of reason and principle, he is marooned on "a self-righteous Supreme Court," surrounded by a "lawyer-trained elite" that is determined to foist its "smug assurances" and "counter-majoritarian preferences" onto a helpless and unwitting nation. As Scalia tells it, his legal views rest on history and law, while his colleagues adopt positions that are "irrational . . . preposterous . . . [and] comical."

WASHINGTON - The historic Voting Rights Act appeared to be in deep trouble Wednesday after the Supreme Court's conservative justices argued during a racially charged debate that targeting the South for special scrutiny was no longer fair. The unusually tense discussion split along ideological lines. Justices from the left and right took turns arguing the case - and arguing with one another over whether racism and racial discrimination remain problems. At one point, Justice Antonin Scalia referred to the law as a "perpetuation of racial entitlement," a phrase that irked Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who voiced strong objection earlier this week to a Texas prosecutor's focus on defendants' race.

As the Supreme Court begins its new term Monday, its sixth with John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice, the reality is that this is the most conservative court since the mid-1930s. Since Richard Nixon ran for president in 1968, conservatives have sought to change constitutional law, and they have succeeded in virtually every area. During the first years of the Roberts court, it has consistently ruled in favor of corporate power, such as in holding that corporations have the 1st Amendment right to spend unlimited amounts in independent political campaigns.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court's conservative justices signaled Wednesday they were likely to strike down a University of Texas affirmative action policy, but did not make clear how far they might go in outlawing the use of race in admissions at colleges and universities. From his opening question, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said he was troubled by having students "check a box" to designate race or ethnicity and by allowing officials to decide who is admitted based on this factor.

WASHINGTON - U.S. Supreme Court justices strongly suggested they would uphold a provision in Arizona's tough immigration law that tells police to check whether people they stop for some other reason are in this country legally. But several justices also suggested they were troubled by parts of the law that would make it a state crime for illegal immigrants to seek work or not to carry immigration documents. The hourlong oral arguments Wednesday pointed toward a possible split decision: a partial victory for Arizona that would revive its first-in-the-nation state crackdown on illegal immigrants but weaken the impact of its law. The Obama administration won lower court rulings that blocked Arizona's law on the grounds that it conflicted with the federal government's control over immigration.

Police officers who smell marijuana coming from an apartment can break down the door and enter if they have reason to believe the evidence might be destroyed, several Supreme Court's justices suggested Wednesday. In the past, the high court usually has said police cannot enter a home or apartment without a search warrant because of the 4th Amendment's ban on "unreasonable searches and seizures. " But during arguments in a drug case, the court's conservatives said they favored relaxing that rule when police say they have a need to act fast.

The Supreme Court justices debated Tuesday a tiny Ohio town's limit on door-to-door solicitation to decide when the 1st Amendment's freedom of speech overrides a homeowner's right to privacy and personal security. The Jehovah's Witnesses, who took the issue to the high court, say the Constitution gives them the freedom to "go door to door to speak the good news," as their lawyer put it. "This involves pure religious speech or pure political speech," their attorney, Paul Polidoro, told the court.