WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 (UPI) -- The Supreme Court spent much of the last decade flexing its considerable muscle, deciding cases that affected the lives of ordinary Americans as well as the other branches of government.
In the 1990s, the court tried to fine-tune how police and the public interacted; protected a woman's right to an abortion and the right to protest abortions; limited the ability of governments to make race-based decisions, particularly in drawing up new congressional districts and awarding federal contracts; and subordinated the president to the everyday jurisdiction of the courts.
Beginning with 1997's Clinton vs. Jones, and continuing through the many legal battles between President Clinton and independent counsel Kenneth Starr, the Supreme Court made it plain that the chief executive would have to take his or her chances before the bar like any other citizen.
The culmination of all those legal battles came in late 1998, when the House impeached Clinton for allegedly lying under oath and obstructing justice in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case, and Chief Justice William Rehnquist found himself, much to his personal disgust, presiding over the president's trial in the Senate.
Clinton, of course, was acquitted and history moved on.
Only a year and a half ago, the Supreme Court refused to become involved in the Elian Gonzalez custody battle. Remember him?
It was only a little over a year ago that the Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote along ideological lines, put an end to the seemingly endless Florida recount and ensured that George W. Bush would be Clinton's successor.
Since then, however, the Supreme Court has been a markedly minor player in the Washington power game.
The climactic events of this fall -- the terror attacks of Sept. 11 and this country's war in Afghanistan -- were far removed from the high court's normal sphere of operations.
Indeed, halfway through its current season of arguments, the Supreme Court appears to be an institution in search of a theme.
The high-profile cases have been few and far between. And even those cases that stand out are demonstrably less than historic.
One case that has received much of the attention this term deals with the common elementary school practice of letting students in a class grade each others' quiz papers. The justices should decide within a month or two, in a case out of Oklahoma, whether that practice violates the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act.
Another case, which should be heard in March, will decide whether a state such as Minnesota can prohibit judicial candidates from speaking out "on disputed legal or political issues."
You can also get excited about the current Supreme Court term if you're an intellectual property lawyer. The justices hear argument Tuesday on what one company calls "a fundamental change in patent law."
At issue in the case out of Boston is how much protection a patent gives to a company's invention when a competitor manufactures a similar device with only small changes made to it.
But for the most part, the current term has been decidedly low key.
One development that could wake the court from its long winter's nap, and jerk the institution back into the center of controversy in Washington and the nation, would be the retirement of a justice.
A scenario much discussed within the walls of the Supreme Court itself has Rehnquist stepping down and Bush naming Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as his successor. The president would then name his personal friend, White House counsel Al Gonzales, to be O'Connor's replacement as associate justice.
Under the scenario, O'Connor, would take the job only on a caretaker basis, with the understanding that she would give it up in a year or two to make room for Gonzales as chief justice.
In one stroke, Bush would accomplish several historical firsts: He would be naming the first woman chief justice, and he would be naming the first Hispanic jurist to the Supreme Court. And if O'Connor subsequently retired, he would get to name the first Hispanic as chief justice.
Beyond those milestones, Bush would have a chance to change the current delicate balance of the exiting court, which decides many cases by a 5-4 margin, and make it a much more reliably conservative body into the foreseeable future.
That's the kind of power that presidents dream about.
However, even those within the Supreme Court who promote such a scenario acknowledge that they haven't got a clue as to whether the 77-year-old Rehnquist plans to retire, or whether Bush contemplates such a complicated succession, or whether a Democratic Senate would approve his choices.
Another development that could push the Supreme Court back to center stage would be a legal challenge to Attorney General John Ashcroft's domestic anti-terrorism policy and to Bush's proposal to have some non-citizen terrorist suspects tried by military tribunals rather than U.S. courts of law.
Such a challenge might travel quickly up the appellate ladder and be before the Supreme Court before the end of 2002.
At the moment, however, that possibility seems remote. Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union are having a hard time finding any clients who want to challenge Ashcroft's rigorous crackdowns -- any challenger would have to be directly affected by the policy -- and the White House has been saying it might not use the military tribunal process after all, though it wants the option of doing so if needed.
For the moment, it seems, the Supreme Court will remain a sleeping giant.
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(Michael Kirkland is UPI's Chief Legal Affairs Correspondent. He has covered the Supreme Court for nine years.)
