Unitary

• Both issues reflect a court that has announced revolutionary changes in doctrine and must now grapple with how far the new principles will reach.
• Two years ago, the court began what many consider to be a constitutional revolution.
• The new supermajority of six conservative justices rapidly introduced new doctrines across a range of controversies including abortion, guns, religion and race.

Focus on guns

• Zackey Rahimi is a convicted drug dealer and violent criminal who also had a restraining order in place after assaulting his girlfriend.
• The court will decide whether the federal law prohibiting the possession of firearms by someone subject to a domestic violence restraining order violates the Second Amendment.
• In the 2022 case of New York Rifle & Pistol v. Bruen, the court announced a new understanding of the Second Amendment.
• If the right to carry a gun can be regulated but not eradicated, limited but not eliminated, where is the line?
• The Rahimi case will provide a critical test of this historical approach to the boundaries of constitutional rights.

The power of the administrative state

• The court’s conservatives tend to see the actions of federal agencies as violating the constitutional principle of limited government.
• They fear that the federal government is likely to use its vast power abusively if it is unconstrained.
• In this view, the expansion of the administrative state allowed an end-run around the Constitution’s limits on government power.
• In the last few years, the court has emphasized new doctrines limiting the power of federal agencies.
• Overruling this precedent would strip power from administrative agencies and reallocate decisions to Congress or to courts.