One week into the new Term at the U.S. Supreme Court, the early conventional wisdom is taking shape, and it’s looking like a good term for the conservatives.  Last term ended on a high note for the liberals.  In addition to the same-sex marriage decision, there were a number of dodged bullets as the four justice liberal bloc were able to get the votes to secure majorities to fight back challenges to the Affordable Care Act and the Fair Housing Act.  The liberals were also in the majority in closely divided opinions on voter redistricting and the regulation of judicial elections.  But now, as the new term gets underway, commentators are predicting that the pendulum is about to swing.

What are the cases in which this conservative comeback will take place?  Here are three cases the Court will hear, plus one that the Court will likely hear, that many see as opportunities for significant conservative victories.  

(1) Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association.  Public-sector unions are back at the Court, and many are predicting the Court’s conservatives will continue down the path they’ve been charting in recent terms and further restrict mandatory fees required by non-union members.  In a line of precedent dating to the 1970s, the Court has held that non-union members may be required to pay a “fair share” fee to unions to cover expenses relating to collective bargaining (but excluding expenses relating to political activity).  In Friedrichs, a group of California teachers challenged the required payment of union fees of any kind.  They argued that collective bargaining is a form of political activity, and being forced to fund the union’s collective bargaining efforts is a violation of the First Amendment’s prohibition on compelled speech.  In recent cases, Court conservatives have been receptive to these kind of First Amendment challenges to mandatory fees.

(2) Fisher v. University of Texas.  Not only is affirmative action in higher education back at the Supreme Court, but Abigail Fisher is back.  In 2012 the Court first heard Fisher’s challenge to the racial preference program at the University of Texas.  The Court issued a decision that offered additional guidelines on when university racial preference programs were constitutionally permissible and remanded the case back to the appeals court.  The lower courts reviewed the case again, upheld UT’s racial preference program again, and Fisher’s lawyers have appealed their ruling yet again.  Texas has a unique hybrid approach to achieving racial diversity in its universities, combining a policy that assures admittance to the university system to those in the top 10% of their high school class with a race-conscious admissions policy.  The question before the Court is whether Texas can sufficiently justify the necessity of the race conscious policy when it achieves substantial diversity with its top 10% plan.

(3) Evenwel v. Abbott. The issue of voting rights returns to the Court in a case that raises the question of how to measure population for purposes of redistricting under the one person, one vote requirement.  Is the proper measure eligible voters or the total number of residents?  Practically all states use total residents, but the challengers in this case argue that only eligible voters should be counted.  In districts with large numbers of residents who are not eligible to vote (legal immigrants who are not citizens, undocumented immigrants, felons), a ruling adopting the challengers argument would be highly consequential, likely tilting political power from cities to rural areas—a change that would benefit Republicans.

(4) And it’s likely that abortion will be back.  The last time the Supreme Court heard a major abortion case was 2007, when it upheld the federal law banning so-called “partial-birth” abortions.  This term the Court is likely to consider a challenge to a 2013 Texas law that requires abortion clinics to meet the same standards for equipment and staffing as hospital-style surgical centers and requires for doctors who provide abortions to have admitting privileges at local hospitals.  These new regulations would result in the shutting down of most of the state’s abortion clinics.  The Fifth Circuit upheld the new regulations.  In June, in a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court voted to block the Fifth Circuit ruling until they had time to consider the issue—making it likely they will take up the case.