EDITORIAL: Please rise

The U.S. Supreme Court’s new term starts Tuesday and its importance shouldn’t get lost amid the din and roar of the contentious presidential race.

The Republican Senate’s refused to take up the nomination of appellate Judge Merrick Garland to the high court in the aftermath of Antonin Scalia’s death leaves the panel one justice short. Some observers argue this has led the eight-member court to hold off on accepting any potentially controversial cases.

Still, at least two cases offer the justices the opportunity to strike a blow for free speech and property rights.

In Murr v. Wisconsin, for instance, state regulators thumbed their noses at the Fifth Amendment’s takings clause and ruled by fiat that they could restrict development on a large swath of private property without compensating the owners. The issue concerns two adjacent lots in St. Croix, Wis., purchased by the Murr family in the 1960s. They built a cabin on one lot and left the other vacant. When the family began exploring the possibility of building on or selling the second lot in 2004, local bureaucrats deemed that the two lots could not be developed separately and were now considered to be one property.

The justices here can reinvigorate the Fifth Amendment by holding that government bureaucracies must make property owners whole when they impose regulations that severely restrict the use of their private land.

In another important case, Lee v. Tam, the justices will determine if the federal government can use trademark law to ban speech some people find offensive. The case originated when U.S. patent officials denied an effort by the lead singer of the Slants, an Asian rock band, to register the group’s name in 2011.

A federal appeals court ruled for the band, finding that, “It is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment that the government may not penalize private speech merely because it disapproves of the message it conveys.”

Anything but a strong affirmation of that concept will represent a dangerous erosion of individual liberty. Let’s hope the court agrees.