washington<u+2014>when hillary clinton and donald trump describe their ideal supreme court justice, they lay out strikingly different visions of how american law may develop for years to come after election day. mrs. clinton evokes the high court<u+2019>s liberal heyday of the 1950s and <u+2019>60s, when decisions dismantled segregation and expanded individual rights. <u+201c>the kind of people that i would be looking to nominate to the court would be in the great tradition of standing up to the powerful, standing up on behalf of our rights as americans,<u+201d> the democratic presidential nominee said at the oct. 19 debate. mr. trump pledges to push the court as far to the right as possible, continuing a republican drive to appoint conservatives that began with richard nixon <u+2019>s 1968 law-and-order campaign. mr. trump said at the final debate his appointees would <u+201c>interpret the constitution the way the founders wanted it interpreted.<u+201d> he has said chief justice john roberts, an active republican from the ronald reagan administration until president george w. bush named him to the bench, was too <u+201c>liberal.<u+201d> these positions<u+2014>to a degree boilerplate democratic and republican rhetoric about the court<u+2014>are made more urgent by the current even roster of conservative and liberal justices, and an opening that, once filled, will tip that balance. conscious of that, senate republicans have declined to consider president barack obama <u+2019>s nominee to fill the vacancy left by the february death of conservative justice antonin scalia, saying the next president should make the choice. that has heightened the court<u+2019>s profile as a political issue in the presidential election, and the senate is bracing for bitter fights over future court openings no matter who wins. <u+200b> the presidential candidates have recited positions on specific issues they would expect their nominees to hold. mrs. clinton says she wants her nominees to support decisions that have expansively read the constitution<u+2019>s due-process clause to recognize abortion rights and same-sex marriage. she suggested two recent cases celebrated by conservatives expanding gun rights and lifting political spending limits were ripe for reversal or reinterpretation. mr. trump takes almost precisely the opposite position, saying his election would doom roe v. wade, the 1973 abortion-rights ruling, <u+201c>because i am putting pro-life justices on the court.<u+201d> he described the second amendment as <u+201c>under absolute siege<u+201d> and suggested his appointees would take further steps to increase access to guns. a sharply divided supreme court in 2008 recognized an individual right to possess a handgun in the home for self-defense, but so far has left in place additional state and local weapons regulations. the candidates come to their legal views through different paths. mrs. clinton, who attended yale law school and taught at the university of arkansas school of law, has recalled being a high-school student in 1965, when the court struck down a ban on contraceptive sales by recognizing a constitutional right to privacy. she said griswold v. connecticut <u+201c>left a powerful impression on me. along with all the civil rights cases from the 1950s forward, i saw the court as a place where wrongs were righted.<u+201d> a clinton campaign aide said much of the change the democrat wants may take the form of seemingly dull procedural rules that can strongly affect who wins in court. that could mean unwinding arbitration rules limiting consumers<u+2019> and workers<u+2019> access to the courts, increasing the role of class-action litigation against corporations and expanding the right to counsel in civil litigation, the aide said. mr. trump is a businessman, and his experience with the legal system typically has involved advancing his business<u+00a0>interests. he has released lists of right-leaning jurists he says reflect the type of candidates he would nominate to the supreme court, and he is relying on conservative stalwarts such as the heritage foundation and advisers including sen. jeff sessions (r., ala.) to explain his legal policies. chapman university law professor ronald rotunda, a member of the group scholars and writers for trump, said the gop candidate likely would restart the conservative march that ground to a halt with justice scalia<u+2019>s death. that would mean continued expansion of religious rights, particularly in cases involving opposition to same-sex marriage or contraception coverage under the affordable care act, further limitation of organized labor<u+2019>s powers and increasing skepticism toward campaign-finance regulations. write to jess bravin at jess.bravin@wsj.com
election offers stark choices on supreme court<u+2019>s future - wsj
jess bravin