Thread by @stevenmazie

Ever seen a football game that's, say, 3-3 at the half but winds up 63-17?

The current Supreme Court term is shaping up to be something like that. 1/

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There were some important cases heard in the autumn — on the Double Jeopardy Clause, civil-asset forfeiture and Indian lands in Oklahoma, to name three — but overall it's been a pretty tame three months. 2/

The Court has issued three rulings, all unanimous, with nary a concurrence. A total of just 32 pages.

And the justices recently ducked a hot-button Planned Parenthood funding fight. 3/

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But things should heat up quickly in 2019. The justices have already agreed to hear a case involving a challenge to the Trump administration's wish to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. 4/

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And it has agreed to decide whether a 40-foot cross on public land violates the Establishment Clause. 5/

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On January 4th, the justices will again consider granting three long-pending petitions asking whether the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects gay and transgender people from workplace discrimination. Three circuit courts have said yes; one has said no. 6/

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Many controversial Trump administration policies have fallen in the justices' laps: the DACA rollback, the ban on transgender soldiers in the military and asylum restrictions on the southern border. Add to that a mysterious subpoena fight involving the Mueller investigation. 7/

How big October Term 2018 gets depends in part on whether Justice Kavanaugh continues to keep his head down after an extraordinarily bruising confirmation fight and squeaker vote of 50-48. 8/

It depends, too, on whether Chief Justice John Roberts manages to keep forging broad consensus among his colleagues for narrow rulings. 9/

But it seems quite likely the back half of the term — with oral arguments through April and decisions by the end of June — will be more exciting than the front end. Read all about in my @TheEconomist SCOTUS preview for 2019.

economist.com/democracy-in-a…