now becomes what has motivated this change in the Court’s attitude? There is little doubt that the strong conservative inclination of the Court’s Chief Justice William Rehnquist has played a role in this recent shift. Rehnquist is backed by a fairly conservative Court with Justices Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy and O’Connor behind him, and perhaps this majority will force a return to the upholding of States’ rights. Just last year this trend appeared to be continuing as the Court forbid state probation officers from suing states to collect unpaid federal overtime and protected universities from suit for breaking patent laws. The docket in front of the Court as they head back into session this week is clearly heavy on tenth amendment cases. Facing the Court will be cases where the decisions could expand the tenth amendment or vastly limit it. The Justices will have to decide if state employees are still protected under federal anti-discrimination laws or if states can use federal money to pay for bus transportation to religious schools. While precedents do exist for these issues, the Rehnquist Court has been only too happy to over turn and viewing these cases with a more conservative eye might be enough to alter the outcome. There are also three new, groundbreaking cases the Court will review. These cases are important because they, unlike the cases mentioned above, are precedent setting. Perhaps even more importantly the cases are critical because the Court’s decision will play itself out in more than one arena. The first issue concerns a principal called “pre-emption” in which the Court must decide if federal statutes can supersede state codes and laws. Pre-emption would require Congress to indicate each time a bill would supercede a state law and thus make it ten times as difficult to do. Businesses are against it because it makes uniform federal laws, which businesses favor over a mu...
