Supreme Court to grapple with race, elections amid Roe ruling fallout - USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court will grapple with race, LGBTQ rights and election rules in a fraught new term that begins Monday, even as the justices and the nation wrestle with the fallout from the decision in June to overturn Roe v.

With affirmative action on the docket, along with immigration and a case about whether businesses may deny services for same-sex weddings, the high court isn't shying from opportunities to leave a mark once again on America's economy, culture and politics.

"There's no reason to think this coming term or any term in the foreseeable future will be any different," said Irv Gornstein, a law professor and executive director of Georgetown University's Supreme Court Institute. "On things that matter most, get ready for a lot of 6-3s.".

Recap: Supreme Court ends historic term with shift to the right on abortion, guns.

Many of the court's biggest decisions in June – such as to expand access to guns and further blur the line separating church and state – cleaved the six Republican-nominated justices from the three-member liberal bloc, escalating a debate over the court's fidelity to precedent and whether some of the vote splits have as much to do with the ideology of individual justices as with strict adherence to legal principles.

Republican lawmakers in North Carolina are asking the high court to rule that state legislatures have the power to change voting rules without oversight from state courts.

That theory, opponents say, is tough to square with a 2015 decision in which a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court upheld a commission that draws Arizona's congressional districts – in other words, an entity that is not part of the state Legislature.

But if the Supreme Court ultimately decides the Arizona case is relevant, the lawmakers have a solution, which they raise in a footnote: "The court should overrule it.".

To draw what plaintiffs want – a map that includes two African American majority districts – would require officials to elevate race above every other factor mapmakers are supposed to consider in the redistricting process, the state says. 

In another series of cases, the Supreme Court must decide whether a 1978 law intended to stop the forced removal of Native American children from their tribes violates the equal protection of rights

"There are hundreds of adoptions that take place involving this law," Lisa Blatt, a veteran Supreme Court litigator who argued a similar case before the court in 2013, said at a Georgetown Law School event. "It is of an enormous amount of importance to people who adopt children or want to give up their children for adoption."

Jackson joined the court in June and has already taken part in a handful of emergency cases

Hazing: Constitutional questions, cafeteria choices await Jackson at Supreme Court

Diversity: With Jackson, Supreme Court is the most diverse in history

Bio: What to know about Justice Jackson, now seated on the Supreme Court

But the United States Supreme Court is a long-term proposition," said Doug Jones, the former Alabama senator and Democrat who helped guide Jackson through her confirmation

Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Jackson announced at her confirmation hearings that she would recuse herself from the Harvard affirmative action case because she had served on the university's board of overseers