Imagine civilians legally packing pistols as they stroll the streets of San Francisco and Los Angeles. Or health care that is harder for Californians to obtain or even afford. Or air in the Central Valley with higher concentrations of methane gas, or county jails across the state that have no recourse but to allow federal agents inside for an immigration search.

None of these changes is guaranteed. But they’re all potential effects of a rightward shift in the U.S. Supreme Court, with the addition of President Trump’s newest nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge in Washington, D.C.

…

“If California thinks married couples should get the same rights, same-sex or not, its ability to give couples those rights depends on whether other states will respect those rights when people get there,” said Pamela Karlan, a Stanford law professor and former Justice Department attorney under President Barack Obama.

…

The key to those cases, said Stanford’s Karlan, is “whether justices who thought it was commandeering to demand that the sheriff’s department do background checks for guns won’t find it when the federal government tries to use states for immigration enforcement.”