Religion, Guns, and Brewskis Highlight Packed Supreme Court Schedule

The Supreme Court is preparing for a busy new term with consequential cases involving gun rights, voter ID requirements, and religious preschools.The Nine will open the fall term on October 5 with oral arguments in Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, a landmark case over whether state and local governments can sue fossil fuel companies for climate change damages. The case could have far-reaching implications involving state’s rights under the Constitution. Approximately 60 states and localities have brought near-identical suits to hold fossil-fuel producers liable for alleged past and future climate-related harms in those places.Exxon Mobil and Suncor Energy argue that state-law claims are superseded by federal environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act. “Seeking injury in the form of physical harms allegedly caused by global emissions, as petitioners do, is just an indirect method of regulating interstate and international emissions,” lawyers for the companies wrote in a brief.President Trump’s solicitor general, John Sauer, will take part in the arguments. The Trump administration says individual states shouldn’t be able to regulate nationwide energy policy.In November, the justices will take up a case involving the First Amendment and religious rights. St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy involves whether Colorado can deny preschool funding to religious preschools that refuse to sign a nondiscrimination agreement regarding sexual orientation and gender identity. The petitioners, Catholic preschools in the Archdiocese of Denver, claim they faced religious discrimination when they were denied state funding for excluding families from its preschools who disagreed with the Catholic Church’s teachings on gender and sexuality.Colorado officials argue that all schools need to follow the same rules. “Petitioners urge this Court to authorize them to receive public funds on terms different from every other participating preschool—terms that would allow them to exclude families based on protected-class status. The Constitution does not support that result,” Colorado’s attorney general, Philip Weiser, stated in a brief.Mr. Sauer has requested to take part in the arguments on behalf of the plaintiffs. “The United States has substantial interests in protecting religious exercise and in enforcing rules prohibiting discrimination by government funding recipients,” Mr. Sauer wrote in a brief to the court.An aspect of the Trump administration’s immigration policy will also be argued in November. In Wassily v. Blanche, the justices will weigh whether noncitizens who had their asylum terminated are eligible for lawful permanent residency. The Board of Immigration Appeals says the Refugee Act of 1980 only allows a noncitizen with current asylum status to be given permanent resident status.The plaintiffs are two non-citizens who had their asylum revoked after convictions. They argue that under that interpretation, “noncitizens who have lived in the United States for decades—who have built careers, raised families, paid taxes, and contributed to their communities—face removal to countries where they still fear persecution or where they have no ties. That includes innocent refugees and spouses and children of refugees whose asylum is terminated through no fault of their own.”In December the justices will hear Jouppi v. Alaska, a case involving an Alaska bush pilot who has been on a years-long quest to block the forfeiture of his plane over a passenger’s six-pack of beer. State troopers arrested Ken Jouppi after finding beer in his plane that he was preparing to fly to a tiny village that outlawed alcohol. The state ordered him to surrender his plane as part of the punishment saying stiff penalties are needed to deter non-compliance with alcohol regulations.Mr. Jouppi lawyers say the penalty violates the Bill of Rights’ Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment. Libertarian groups have filed briefs in support of Mr. Jouppi. “If this Court fails to act, the people will continue to suffer from inconsistent and inadequate protection of a fundamental right,” the Cato Institute wrote in a brief.The justices will also hear arguments in a gun rights case. In Viramontes v. Cook County the court will decide whether the Second and 14th Amendments guarantee the right to possess AR-15 style semiautomatic rifles. There are estimated to be between 20 to 30 million of that type of gun in America but around a dozen Democrat-controlled states ban them. Second Amendment advocates say they are “in common use” for lawful purposes and so protected by the Second Amendment.Another December case, International Partners for Ethical Care, Inc. v. Ferguson, involves whether parents can challenge a state policy that displaces their authority over their children. The case challenges Washington laws that allow youth shelters to notify the state rather than the parents when a runaway minor is seeking or receiving “gender-affirming treatment” or other “protected” health care services. The parent petitioners allege that the laws interfere with their right to direct the upbringing and medical care of their children.“Parents should not have to clear judicially created hurdles to challenge a law that directly infringes upon their fundamental right to raise their own children,” the Liberty Justice Center lawyer Katie Cosgrove, said in a brief supporting the parent’s case.Another December case involves a voting case out of Arizona. Republican National Committee v. MiFamilia Vota centers on whether Arizona’s proof of citizenship requirement to register for elections is legal. The state amended its election laws in 2022 over concerns that non citizens voted in the 2020 presidential election. The case also involves an Arizona law requiring election officials to regularly check voter rolls for noncitizens. The Justice Department has filed a brief in support of the state, saying the case concerns “two commonsense state laws protecting election integrity.”The Supreme Court generally rules on cases that are argued in the fall anytime between December and the traditional end of the term in late June and justices go on their summer recess.

Religion, Guns, and Brewskis Highlight Packed Supreme Court Schedule

Religion, Guns, and Brewskis Highlight Packed Supreme Court Schedule

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