Let us pray AT LEAST one branch of America’s government is functional: the Supreme Court’s term began, as planned, on October 7th. This is John Roberts’s ninth term as Chief Justice. The court remains evenly balanced between four conservatives and four liberals, with Justice Anthony Kennedy as the swing vote. This makes the court as unpredictable as it is powerful. On October 8th the court heard oral arguments in McCutcheon v Federal Election Commission (FEC), its biggest campaign-finance case since 2010, when its Citizens United ruling struck down many restrictions on political spending by companies and unions. Federal law currently limits the amount of money that a person may contribute to any one candidate or political committee. It also limits the total amount that a person may donate to all candidates and political committees during a two-year election cycle.

Shaun McCutcheon, a Republican businessman from Alabama, is challenging these aggregate limits, which were imposed in the 1970s to prevent corruption. Why, he asks, does the law say he can give $2,600 to each of 17 congressional candidates without risk of corrupting them, but not to an 18th? He argues that changes to campaign-finance laws since the 1970s render aggregate limits “a relic of a past era of campaign-finance regulation [that] should have been discarded years ago.” The FEC disagrees.

Does money corrupt or inform?

More broadly, Mr McCutcheon’s supporters argue that curbs on campaign donations stifle political debate. They add that Congress has a conflict of interest when it passes laws that protect incumbents against challengers, who need cash to buy ads to make themselves known to voters.

During oral argument the court appeared to split along familiar lines, with Ruth Bader Ginsburg sounding eager to preserve aggregate limits, and Antonin Scalia keen to do away with them.

On October 15th the court will hear yet another case about racial preferences. At issue in Schuette v Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action is whether state constitutional amendments banning affirmative action (which are popular with voters) violate the (federal) constitutional right to “the equal protection of the laws”. Last year a federal appellate court ruled that they did, because they placed “special burdens on minority interests”.

That conflicts with earlier rulings upholding California’s affirmative-action ban. Should the Supreme Court agree with the Michigan court, affirmative-action bans, which have been written into at least eight state constitutions, would be imperilled. Such a ruling is highly unlikely, however, since Justice Kennedy tends to frown on positive discrimination.

The next high-profile case concerns prayer at government meetings, an area where the law is hopelessly muddled. On November 6th the court will hear arguments in Greece v Galloway. In 1999 the town of Greece, in upstate New York, invited citizens to open its monthly town-board meetings with a prayer. Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Baha’i and Wiccans have all had a go. Most prayers have been Christian, but no citizen who wishes to offer an invocation has been turned away.

Nonetheless, two residents of Greece sued the town, contending that its prayers violated the First Amendment by discriminating against non-Christians and by advancing one faith over others. A district court ruled in the town’s favour; an appellate court reversed.

Greece is hardly alone in opening its sessions with a prayer. Both arms of Congress have salaried chaplains, and many courts (including the Supreme Court) open by announcing “God save the United States and this honourable Court”. Precedents favour Greece: in 1983 the Supreme Court upheld the Nebraska legislature’s practice of opening sessions with a prayer offered by a Presbyterian chaplain paid with public funds. This time, the Court will probably side with Greece. Christians used to burn witches; some see it as progress that the two groups now pray together.

Not yet on the calendar are two cases dealing with abortion. Cline v Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice asks whether an Oklahoma statute regulating (effectively banning, claims the coalition) medically-induced abortions imposes an “undue burden” on women who want one. This has been the Supreme Court’s controlling standard as to whether an abortion rule is permissible since 1992. The other case, McCullen v Coakley, asks whether a Massachusetts statute establishing a 35-foot “buffer zone” around abortion clinics to keep pro-life protesters away from patients violates the First Amendment by selectively regulating speech.

Also not yet scheduled is National Labour Relations Board (NLRB) v Canning, which concerns the scope of the president’s power to make “recess appointments”. Ordinarily, presidential appointees must be confirmed by the Senate, but the constitution grants the president “power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate.”

For much of January 2012, the Senate conducted no business; instead, every so often, one lonely Republican member would stroll into the empty chamber to bang a gavel twice: once to call the Senate to order and once to adjourn it. This was done to prevent Mr Obama from making any recess appointments (Democrats did the same thing when George W. Bush was president). Mr Obama decided that the Senate was, in fact, in recess, and appointed three members to the NLRB, which adjudicates American labour disputes and requires a quorum of at least three members to do its work.

Unlock or gridlock

In January a three-judge panel ruled the appointments invalid. It held that it is up to the Senate to make its own rules, such as deciding whether or not it is in session; the president may not simply over-rule it. The Supreme Court will revisit the issue. Should it rule in the president’s favour, it might give him (and any future president) a simple way to side-step Senate confirmation of his more controversial appointees. Should it rule against him, it would make it easier for a recalcitrant Senate to prevent a president from filling ambassadorships, judgeships and executive positions at multiple agencies. Given how dysfunctional America’s government already is, that doesn’t sound terribly appealing.